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. 

Your Approval Isn't Needed

I think that this may have possibly been one of the longest weeks of my life. Staff training. 

I hate staff training. It's so uncomfortable. I feel like I don't fit in anywhere and I don't belong in this big group. 

But then I remember that I am, in fact, an introvert. And therefore, being around this many people at one time is very overwhelming for me. 

Then I also remember that I am someone who tends to define herself by the approval of others. If people like me, I'm valuable and good enough. If they don't, then why do I exist?

But think about this. I am at a camp. A camp for a church that affirms everyone because they are created in the image of God and are God's beloved children. 

So who am I trying to impress? 

What is it about us as humans that we always feel that it is necessary to be accepted?  Yes, it is human nature to want to be with people and be loved and given attention, but I am loved unconditionally by my Heavenly Father and therefore, the approval of others is completely irrelevant. 

But I'm never going to stop feeling like I need to be accepted or included to be seen as good enough. It's in my nature. I just need to continually remind myself that I am a beloved daughter of the Most High and nothing can change that. 

Not my appearance. 

Not my grades. 

Not the approval of others. 

Resting in that is difficult, especially when I don't feel that it's true. But truth isn't always the same as what I feel is true. 

So yes, this week was rough, but it's over. I don't need approval to be good enough. And next week, I'll have campers and be surrounded by fewer adults and feel less pressure to fit in and be accepted because they already accept me and because it is there that I feel accepted and loved without trying to be either. 

And eventually, I will be surrounded with only people who build me up, accept me, and love me.

It will be okay. 

I Will Trust.

Trust.
1a : to place confidence : depend
  b : to be confident : hope
2a : to commit or place in one's care or keeping : entrust
  b : to permit to stay or go or to do something without fear or misgiving
3a : to rely on the truthfulness or accuracy of : believe 
  b : to place confidence in : rely on 
  c : to hope or expect confidently 

SYNONYMS
certainty, belief, faith, assurance, confidence, imply a feeling of security, instinctive unquestioning belief in and reliance upon something, conscious trust because of good reasons, definite evidence, or past experience, to have confidence in the outcome of events, absolute confidence and certainty: to feel an assurance of victory

Trust is hard, especially when something is completely out of your hands.  Especially when it's important to you.  And especially when you doubt.

Yesterday, I submitted my application to work on summer staff.  And I was feeling pretty good about it until today.  I'm not really sure what happened, but I suddenly had an anxiety attack. 'What if I don't get hired back?  What if my emotional-ness last summer is going to stop me from returning?  What if I can't go back to my "home?"'

What if, what if, what if...

What ifs are irrelevant.  It isn't in my control anymore.  It's in God's hands, and I'm pretty sure that He knows what He's doing better than I do.  Look at His promises:

Jeremiah 29: 11
' "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord.  "Plans to prosper you and not to harm you.  Plans to give you hope and a future." '

Romans 8: 28
'We know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.'

He's totally got this.  He has plans for me!  Does this include summer staff this summer?  I don't know.  But He does. Therefore, I can put my trust solely in the Lord and in His love.  Because He will work all things for good and He will put me where I am supposed to be this summer.  It could be camp, but it could not be camp.  Whatever it is, it is for the glory of God.

Nothing I have is my own.
My talents, my strength, my love... it's all His.
And it's all for His glory.

So I WILL trust in Jesus.  

I refuse to worry.  

I refuse to ask 'What if?' 

I will trust. 

Proverbs 3: 5-6

'Trust in the Lord will all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.  In all your ways, acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.' 

Roommate.

“Why am I so anxious? And then it hits me. I'm not anxious, I'm lonely. And I'm lonely in some horribly deep way and for a flash of an instant, I can see just how lonely, and how deep this feeling runs. And it scares the shit out of me to be so lonely because it seems catastrophic - seeing the car just as it hits you.” 

(Augusten Burroughs)

Today, my new roommate moved in.  It's a big change.  I had just gotten used to spending the days by myself without Megan or anyone else in my room.  I had gotten used to being lonely.  

I was used to the late nights and late mornings. 

To an empty bed and an empty desk. 

To being able to walk around my room naked.

And now I have to share it again. 

With a stranger. 

This is scary.  

Honestly, what if she doesn't like me? 

What if I'm not a good roommate? 

What if I don't like her? 

What if she's not a good roommate? 

What if we fight? 

I don't even know her and I agreed to let her move in with me.

But I agreed.  I based my decision on my gut.  On how I felt after that first meeting.  And my gut is usually right.  This is just a change. 

A change of lifestyle. 

A change of living. 

A change of pace. 

Change is good. 

It makes us strong.

Breathe.  Pray.  Trust. 

God knows what He's doing. 

“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.” 

(Lao Tzu)

Reflection of the Day.

Today I had one of those days where I just wanted to scream and cry and then go to sleep.  Or where I really just wanted to get hit by a bus... not die, but get hit by one and wake up in the hospital.

Yeah.  It was a long day.

I dealt with friend drama, with my eating disorder, with being angry at my mother, with life, with everything.  And after this kind of crappy day, I really just wanted to sleep.

But of course, I can't do that.  I go to college, remember?  I have homework.

So I decided to go work out.
And I did, after my night lecture.

Now let's pause here for one quick moment and think about the implications of me working out.  It's not something I do on a regular basis.  In fact, the only times that I have ever worked out in my life are when my eating disorder was the worst or I was super stressed.

So the fact that I worked out tonight implies lots of things.  First, that I'm currently in eating disordered mindset and not trying to be healthy.  Which means that I haven't really eaten today.  Or lately, really.  Which means that my vitals are crap right now.  Which means that I've been told that I'm not allowed to work out.

Second, this implies that my stress level was un-chartable.  That I was just feeling things and needed to get them out via some form of physical activity.

Luckily for me, I have a friend who was more than willing to go with me.  Not luckily for me, she also struggles with body image and had a sub-clinical eating disorder in high school.

Well.
I didn't run until I passed out.
I limited myself to half an hour of running because I had a friend with me.

But here's the thing: anorexia makes me not want to listen to the voice of reason inside of my head.  It makes me upset that it's even there and it makes me feel crazy because I can't think/function/act normally.  Anorexia takes the good and turns it into the bad.  It takes the counsel of wise women, like my nutritionist, and ignores it.  It takes the friends and turns them into enemies.

And I'm sick of it.
Literally just sick of it.

I wake up every day wanting to fight.
And I fall asleep wanting to give up.
This is not okay.

It's not okay because it's not who I am.  It's not who I was meant to be and it's not good for me.  That voice of reason, the good, the counsel of those wiser than me, the friends--those are all things that I need.  That anorexia has taken from me.

It's taken my life.

How much more of it will it consume before I cease to exist at all?

Giving up is not an option.
I can't change the world if I'm dead.

What Recovery Looks Like.

"Recovery itself is a very un-glamorous daily process of being willing to fall down again, to break again, to cry again, to get up and try yet again until 'success' manifests as ever-greater sustained healing." 

(Shannon Cutts)

You know, I read something a while ago about how in recovery, you will always come back to the same place again and again.  But that each time, you will know more about how to help yourself when you fall down again and eventually, you'll be able to catch yourself before you go as far down the path, until you are able to completely stop yourself before it happens. 

Well. 

I think I'm learning. 

That's the thing about eating disorders--I don't believe that they ever, truly leave us.  I mean, we recover.  Our weight becomes stable.  Our vitals are good.  We leave residential, day treatment, or weekly treatment to go on to other things like camp or college.  And we get there and things are fine for a while.  

But when you're at camp, you have checkpoints.  

You get your vitals checked. You go home. You have a support system right there with you.

But when you go to college, you're really on your own. 

Until second semester. 

When there is every opportunity to relapse. 

And no matter how much you tell yourself that you won't, you slip.  You don't mean to, of course, but you do.  It's something little, too, like the fact that you don't have classes in the mornings so you don't get up and eat breakfast and your entire meal schedule gets thrown off.  

Once that happens, the thoughts start to resurface: 

"You don't need to eat three meals a day to function."

"Losing a few pounds wouldn't hurt."

And you catch it.

You catch that you're slipping. 

So you make some choices--meal plan, accountability, no secrets, therapy.  

Recovery is something that takes time. 

It's a process. 

And it definitely isn't a straight shot. 

I can think back on all of the times when I've fallen down and struggled and failed at this.  But never have I been able to notice early enough to be proactive before my weight and vitals were dangerous.  I'm struggling. I'm fighting with my ED through all of this. 

But you know what? 

This isn't going to defeat me. 

I will beat this. 

I am stronger. 

Meal plan. Accountability. Therapist. 

All self-initiated. 

This is progress. 

This is what recovery looks like. 

What Am I Doing With My Life?

So.

Every so often, I just randomly have these panic attacks where I have no idea what I'm going to do with my life. Actually, it's pretty much every day that it happens. Or. It used to be.

But today, it hit me.

I don't think that I want to be a psychology major. 

I thought that was what I wanted to do--work in a treatment center for women with eating disorders. I had it all planned out. But now, I'm not so sure. Because yes, I love helping people. I love working with people who have eating disorders. I like talking to them, relating, encouraging, sharing my story.

But if I go into psychology, I can't do that. I can't share my story like I would want to. And honestly, I don't think that it would be good for me to face potentially triggering situations all day. At least not right now.

I know I want to write.

I want to write about things that are important to me. About Jesus. About eating disorders and mental illness. About families, women's rights, children. About recovery. About hope. About politics, about America, about important people, about history.

I want to use my voice.

Last year, I remember writing a poem about how I felt like no one listened to me. That no one heard my voice. And there I was, using my voice.
Writing.

Not talking. 

Writing.

I want to write. 

I want to be that person who changes the world, who inspires the hopeless, who makes a difference in her words. I want to tell my story. I want to tell the story of others. I want to make a difference. I want to use my voice. 

If I was a psychologist, I would still write. It's not something that I ever wanted to give up. In fact, it's something that I was always planning on continuing all throughout my life. I wanted to write a book once my career got started. Or before. I didn't really care-- I just wanted to write. 

But here's the thing, if I keep writing as my focus, that doesn't mean that I can't work as an activist. In fact, it gives me even more of an opportunity to raise awareness about things that are important to me like eating disorders, sexual assault, rape, and women's rights. It gives me more time to write about things that inspire me-- President Obama, my kids, camp, Jesus. It gives me more time to use my words to tell my story, and more importantly, to tell the stories of others. 

It gives me time to work in activism. To speak out. To travel. To make a difference. To volunteer. To work with others. 

But, I don't know what I'll do for sure. 

So right now, I'm going to keep my psychology major. But I'm going to add an English with a writing concentration major. And I'm going to minor in women's studies. 

And after that, who knows? 

I'm only in my second semester of college. I don't have to have this all figured out right now. 

I have time. 

How to be Alone

A beautiful poem by Tanya Davis.

If you are at first lonely, be patient.

If you’ve not been alone much, or if when you were, you weren’t okay with it, then just wait. You’ll find it’s fine to be alone once you’re embracing it.

We can start with the acceptable places, the bathroom, the coffee shop, the library, where you can stall and read the paper, where you can get your caffeine fix and sit and stay there. Where you can browse the stacks and smell the books; you’re not supposed to talk much anyway so it’s safe there.

There is also the gym, if you’re shy, you can hang out with yourself and mirrors, you can put headphones in.

Then there’s public transportation, because we all gotta go places.
And there’s prayer and mediation, no one will think less if your hanging with your breath seeking peace and salvation.

Start simple. Things you may have previously avoided based on your avoid being alone principles.

The lunch counter, where you will be surrounded by chow downers, employees who only have an hour and their spouses work across town, and they, like you, will be alone.

Resist the urge to hang out with your cell phone.

When you are comfortable with eat lunch and run, take yourself out for dinner; a restaurant with linen and Silverware. You’re no less an intriguing a person when you are eating solo desert and cleaning the whip cream from the dish with your finger. In fact, some people at full tables will wish they were where you were.

Go to the movies. Where it’s dark and soothing, alone in your seat amidst a fleeting community.

And then take yourself out dancing, to a club where no one knows you, stand on the outside of the floor until the lights convince you more and more and the music shows you. Dance like no one’s watching because they’re probably not. And if they are, assume it is with best human intentions. The way bodies move genuinely to beats, is after-all, gorgeous and affecting. Dance until you’re sweating. And beads of perspiration remind you of life’s best things. Down your back, like a book of blessings.

Go to the woods alone, and the trees and squirrels will watch for you. Go to an unfamiliar city, roam the streets, they are always statues to talk to, and benches made for sitting gives strangers a shared existence if only for a minute, and these moments can be so uplifting and the conversation you get in by sitting alone on benches, might have never happened had you not been there by yourself.

Society is afraid of alone though. Like lonely hearts are wasting away in basements. Like people must have problems if after awhile nobody is dating them.

But lonely is a freedom that breathes easy and weightless, and lonely is healing if you make it.

You can stand swathed by groups and mobs or hands with your partner, look both further and farther in the endless quest for company.

But no one is in your head. And by the time you translate your thoughts an essence of them maybe lost or perhaps it is just kept. Perhaps in the interest of loving oneself, perhaps all those “sappy slogans” from pre-school over to high school groaning, we’re tokens for holding the lonely at bay.

Cause if you’re happy in your head, then solitude is blessed, and alone is okay.

It’s okay if no one believes like you, all experience is unique, no one has the same synapses, can’t think like you, for this be relieved, keeps things interesting, life’s magic things in reach, and it doesn’t mean you aren’t connected, and the community is not present, just take the perspective you get from being one person in one head and feel the effects of it.

Take silence and respect it.

If you have an art that needs a practice, stop neglecting it, if your family doesn’t get you or a religious sect is not meant for you, don’t obsess about it.

You could be in an instant surrounded if you need it.

If your heart is bleeding, make the best of it.

There is heat in freezing, be a testament.