stuck in the mud

do you ever feel like you just got smacked across the face with a hand called life? Not the things that you DO in life, but the things that you DON'T accomplish? well i hope you haven't. i experience  it quite often, and today was a major slap across the face.

i had the most amazing weekend this weekend, the best i have had in years and years. Part of it was because i had 2 of my great friends over from treatment, and the other part was because i actually was able to experience what freedom and independence REALLY feels like.  i guess you could argue that i do have some form of independence because i live on my own. but it certainly does not feel that way. i do live on my own, but i live between these four walls almost 24/7 and in constant isolation.

i have lost all friends, i cant work, i cant go to school, and i do not have a car all because of how out of control i let my anorexia get. This past weekend, i got a taste of what it is like to be so called "normal," (whatever that means). i was an average 20 year old, i drove a car, left my apartment when i was bored, went shopping when i wanted, went for a drive when i wanted, and was able to pick up food and other things i need for my house when needed. so many of us take these things for granted, including me. i became so comfortable in being isolated in my apartment that it was almost terrifying to sit in the drivers seat and make a decision of what to do and where to go. For so many years, it was always others doing this for me because others deemed me incapable of doing these simple life tasks. But not this weekend, this weekend i was a vibrant, and typical 20 year old girl.

but the only reason i was able to be that girl was because of my friend renting a car when she flew in, now that she is gone, i feel myself slipping back into my depression and isolation at a very rapid pace. i mean it is not ALL because of me not having a car, sure its a HUGE part of it, but also because it made me realize how stuck i am. i feel like my life has been on the pause button since the age of 12, the age i was diagnosed with the stupid eating disorder. i wish i had a remote to my life that i could rewind and start and never have to pause because of a damn eating disorder. but i cant, and now i just feel like my body is sinking deeper and deeper into the quick sand. i am up to my neck, just centimeters away from it covering my mouth.the world continues to spin on its axis and people continue about their daily routines as i sit in my apartment rotting and starving to death. i stare out the windows to the beautiful world wondering if i will ever be able to enjoy, or allow myself to enjoy the wonders of it. you want to know one of my biggest fears? being stuck like this
F O R E V E R.....

another year

Another year of my life has gone by. Most people like to look back on their year and remember all of their positive memories. I look back at my year with regret. the only memories i have are memories being tortured in hospitals and treatment centers. I always hate that famous question everybody seems to ask when it is your birthday. for me this year it was; "how does it feel to be 20?" Now how is anyone expected to answer that question? it is just another day like all the other days of the year, only that day is supposed to be devoted to you i suppose. I do not feel any older, or any wiser. although others would argue that because they are a whole year older, they are a  completely different human being. Now if that is true, i would like the magic potion to make that come true for myself. i would have loved to wake up on my birthday and be rid of this awful eating disorder. instead, on the 16th i woke up with dread. dread that i wasted a whole other year on foolishness and mind games. but you see, in the moment it doesn't seem that way. in the moment when i am starving or exercising or purging, i don't realize i am wasting away such precious days. or the fact that i am actually leading myself to an early grave. most of the time i do not notice or pay attention to what i am doing. it just comes second nature. it is a part of who i am. i am not proud of this part of me though. or there are few times when i know what i am doing, but cant stop because it feels so good to see that number on the scale go down, or for my clothes to become bigger on me.  and then there's the rest of the times, which is the majority of the time that i curse the eating disorder. i curse ana for grabbing control of me. i try to pry away her bony long fingers and sharp nails away from my throat as she strangles me. but it doesn't work, or at least it hasn't yet. She has become attached to me. She feels like the only thing that allows me to cope with this hell called "life." Yet in reality, the exact opposite is being done to me. she isn't providing me with the tools to grow into a person, she is like a weed sucking all of the sunlight and water for herself so i dwindle away. I keep falling into her trap because of the promises she comforts me with. but it has been 8 years with her, and not one of her promises has come true, well except for the promise of making me thin. But the thing is, i don't see this, i see fat. i see a 20 year old who needs so much work done on her that she is hopeless.

i feel dread when it comes to thinking about my 20th year. will i spend it like my last 8 years with this eating disorder? or will this year be different? i so badly want it to be different. but wanting it to be different, and it actually being different are two different stories. i can write the story i want for myself, but will this story be published?

who am i?

it is a Friday morning, i am standing barefoot on the cold tiled floor of my bathroom after stepping on and off the scale at least 10 times. it is stormy and miserable out, but this storm doesn't compare to the storm inside of me. i grip the edge of the sink to hold my balance from the dizziness. i then start to lean in to stare closer at the girl looking back at me in the mirror. i do not have the slightest idea of who she is. her eyes are empty and hollow; no speck of hope or life. i no longer recognize myself. i slowly ease my way to the tiled floor, curl my knees up to my chest and sob. "what have i become?"

i get asked all the time "who is Bekah?" i do not know the answer to this question, but really wish that i did. maybe in time i will get to know her, or she will become less hidden under the monster i call my eating disorder. the eating disorder has consumed every part of my life, including my identity. it changed the way that I related to those around me. It dictates my feelings and choices. It influences so many aspects of my life that I do not even know what I do or do not like anymore. The eating disorder is an ever present voice in my head that dictates my every move. but i am sick and tired of it, sick and tired of being sick and tired.......

you have control over it..... do i?

whenever my eating disorder is brought up in any kind of discussion, the words "well you know you have control over it" always seems to lurk its way into the conversation. This has to probably be one of the comments that pisses me off the most. It usually comes from people who have never even dealt with an eating disorder. i do agree in the beginning we do have control, but the more and more that we get swept into the eating disorder, the control quickly dwindles away. ed has control, i do not.

i feel like when "I" wake up in the morning, it is not really me. the moment i open my eyelids, ed is screaming in my ear telling me exactly what needs to be done. ed tells me what to wear, where to go, who to talk to, when to sleep, when to eat or not to eat, when to purge, when to exercise, when to abuse laxatives and diet pills. At first, i thought i was the one telling myself to do these things, and quite possibly it was me. but not anymore.
 i feel like a monster, or maybe that there is just a monster inside of me.Its the secret side of me that i don't let people see.  i try to keep it locked up and caged but i cant control it. its hiding under my bed, in my body, and in my head. i know he tears me up and breaks me down but i cant make it end.

  you don't realize how out of control you truly are until you are lying on the ground with your head pounding and body shaking after passing out cold from the malnutrition your body becomes to know quite well. you wonder to yourself, how did i let it get this bad? i remember starting and not even knowing what an eating disorder was, now its destroying me.

People also try and use the guilt-trip on me saying at least i don't have cancer, that they do not have a choice what happens to them. this sounds sick and twisted, but sometimes i wish i where battling cancer and not an eating disorder. with an eating disorder i deal with the mental exhaustion and the physical exhaustion.the tormenting thoughts that lead me to the slow physical deterioration that i don't even realize is happening. and i did not CHOSE to have an eating disorder, i did not wake up one more morning and say "hmm i think i am going to starve myself and become anorexic." it just doesn't work like that.  those with eating disorders are actually being controlled by the disorder, not the other way around.we  find themselves constantly confronted by the fact that we have wrapped our lives around food and our body image, and we are actually a prisoner to our disorder.

"your keys weigh more than you do!"

My apartment complex has a free gym to all those who live there. A blessing for most people, yet a curse for me. Not to mention i am the closest building to the clubhouse, so its extra tempting.

this afternoon, i gave into the eating disorder thoughts and walk into the clubhouse to the gym. I stroll up to the desk where i must sign in, and before a hello, or how are you, the lady says to me while chuckling "YOUR KEYS AROUND YOUR NECK WEIGH MORE THAN YOU DO!"

now how do you respond to a comment like this? Well for me, anytime i am nervous i just laugh, so that is what i proceeded to do.  i continue to sign my name and address on the list with shaking hands as i can feel her scanning my body up and down. i quickly place the pen back down and briskly walk into the gym and close the clear glass door behind me.

after i drop off my jacket and keys on the hanger, i then walk to the wall full of mirrors and begin picking apart my body. i kept thinking to myself "what the hell is she talking about? is she blind? look at all of this fat!" Yet at the same time i become angry. angry that all anyone ever notices now a days is someone's body shape.

A million other thoughts start to flood my mind as i push myself on the elliptical, "does she know i have an eating disorder, is that why she made that comment to make me feel better? wait, there's no way she could know i have an eating disorder... or maybe someone has told her? Well i don't talk to anyone at this apartment complex, was she just being nice? was she trying to convince me not to work out so i would grow fatter to make her feel better about herself? a constant battle plays in my mind the entire while at the gym. i stare at my body in the dreaded mirrors as i go up and down on the elliptical, then peddling on the bike, then crunches, then the treadmill, then the leg machine. by the time i step out of the gym it is 2 hours later, and shift has changed. the man at the desk is having a conversation with someone, i pick up the pen and quickly sign the time out and run for the door. i walk into my apartment door, close the door behind me and fall to the ground with tears and exhaustion flooding me. i cant handle these battles in my head anymore, i cant handle the exhaustion and weakness i feel everyday, i cant handle feeling like i cannot stand because i am going to pass out after pushing myself at the gym.

physical effects

the physical effects of an eating disorder are probably perhaps the worst effects, and man am i feeling them. i think during my rehearsal schedule they where masked through all of the adrenaline. or maybe its because of how horrid my eating habits have been the past week, worse then normal which is quite frightening. my behaviors are completely out of control more so than it has been since i have been home these past few months. my body is feeling them sharp and hard. passing out has become a regular occurrence, in fact has happened twice today. constant chest pain, feeling to weak to even stand up, yet forcing my body to workout to rid myself of the unwanted flesh. i find it hard to even type this blog post because my hands are shaking like an elderly person with Parkinson's disease. my head is pounding, and anytime i stand up in an upright position the room grows dark and i quickly have to sit before my body forces me to lay down involuntarily. how am i supposed to find the energy that needs to be put in my recovery. the energy to fight the unwanted thoughts and negative self-talk? i feel like i do not even have the energy to motion my hand to my mouth to consume anything. does my body even have the energy to digest anything? or will it just sit inside of me and turn straight to fat?

no body ever understands why i have little energy, i literally have no physical or emotional energy, and people judge. they don't care to learn more, they deem us as lazy, or self-centered because we are "too focused on our appearance." the fixation on our appearance is just the tip of the iceberg, maybe we focus on that because we do not want others to see what is really deep down inside of us. or maybe its because WE OURSELVES don't want to face the trauma, abuse, negative talk inside of us. it just becomes easier to focus on the outside than the dark twisty inner self. but this fixation on our bodies is literally killing us, slowly but surely...and i am feeling it.

 a friend messaged me this question....

how often do you make promises to yourself that you don’t keep?

for me, I know how awful it feels when you are using the eating disorder behaviors – the restricting,  purging,exercising, and  laxative abuse,  – and feel so sick and disgusting and swear to yourself up and down that “I’m done!” and, “I’ll never do that again!” only to find yourself doing it the very next day (or sometimes even sooner)!
So how do you get past it and learn to keep those promises and take forward motion steps in your eating disorder recovery?

i always tell myself that tomorrow will be different, tomorrow i will succeed, yet tomorrow never comes. and honestly, for us who have eating disorders, there may not be a tomorrow, if we keep going on everyday like this, it could be too late.  Yet i find it so hard to believe this, and i know a lot of other ed people do as well. i never think i am "sick enough" to die, so in my mind, there will always be a tomorrow, and i can put full force in my recovery tomorrow.

that "tomorrow" has now become 8 years later. truth behold if i continue going on like this, will there be another 8 years, or even another year? Sure in the moment i can ask myself this, but maybe in another 5 minutes ill be back into my same mindset of "not being sick or thin enough" to even question if i will be around in a year. 

People with eating disorders aren't the only people that take waking up the next morning for granted. we all go to bed every night expecting to wake up to the sunrise and go on with another day of our lives. But the reality is, life can be so unexpected at times. You never know when it truly will be your last day, freak accidents happen all of the time, yet we are all to ignorant to believe that they can and will happen to us.

how about instead of living for tomorrow, we live for today and make changes TODAY??