Last night, we decorated my Christmas tree.My mum wanted to take a photo of me putting the angel on the top, and my immediate internal reaction was that I definitely didn't want photographic documentation of how 'healthy/well [fat]' I now am again... Then I reminded myself that it wasn't about that - it was about me being with my family, decorating the Christmas tree: I let her take it. Then immediately compared it to last year's similar picture; picked myself apart and did a lot of thinking while lying on my bed with a huge cup of tea...
As I look back across this year of
growth – both literal and figurative – it hasn’t been linear. It has been messy
and painful; with wobbles and backslides and momentarily ending up somehow
worse than when I started at points of deepest despair. It has forced me to be
real with my imperfection and vulnerability and led me to discover a fragile
new ability to be more honest about how I feel.
Even now, I know I’m not recovered
because I see the year in terms of numbers and weight and calories. January-when-I-was-skinny-and-miserable
and May-when-I-was-heavier-but-happier
and then the dreaded August-and-September-when-being-tiny-again-took-me-to-rock-bottom…
In my mind, my weight and my life are so intertwined – however much I dig to
the logical part of my mind and convince myself that my body is just the thing
I live from and that its size is irrelevant, it still colours my days and my
perception of myself.
My Christmas holidays last year are
fuzzy now, but the general memories are of my daily choices being completely
dictated by myfitnesspal’s calorie count and sitting parked on random streets
in my cold, dark car in order to avoid meals (having conveniently made plans
for 6:30pm to fit with my lies and avoidance). Of sitting against the radiator
in all my clothes and still shivering; avoiding seeing friends who would pull me up
on my weight loss and sipping herbal tea that I didn’t even like because ‘normal
tea has too many calories because of the (skimmed) milk’. I may now gaze a
little longingly at pictures of my smaller legs and teeny waist from those
weeks, but I know passionately that I wasn’t present in my life last Christmas:
I might have been thin, but I was too caught up in my illness to properly be
me; to love the people I love and celebrate life and opportunities.
I am incredibly stubborn. This has, in
the past, been hijacked by my eating disorder: ‘I will get to this weight by
this date. I will not eat more than X calories per day.’; but it is also an
important tool in terms of positive actions. If I decide I’m going to recover, I’m going to make damn sure
that I recover. I’m better at that side: the gritty, determined, painful slog
of meal and snack and milk to top up calories and keeping away from bathrooms
and locking up the trainers and scales. The aspect of recovery that remains a
mystery to me still is the ‘self compassion’ bit: the way in which therapists
want me to think in order to recover – not just by brute force with myself, but
through loving my body and loving myself and deciding that I’m just as worthy of food and happiness as
everyone else and oh look how beautiful I am at a healthy weight.
I’m under no illusion that my cynicism isn’t blindingly obvious in that
sentence. Like almost everyone I’ve ever met with an eating disorder, I see
myself as the exception. I wholeheartedly advocate for others’ worth and
beauty, but I’m somehow 'different'. I force myself to eat and gain weight but hate myself even more when I'm alone and undistracted; I nearly cry every morning while getting dressed because I feel so disgusting. I have a long way to go; but I'm more determined than ever to continue to make progress.
This Christmas season, I've already enjoyed (yes, enjoyed: not tolerated or survived or panicked through, but enjoyed) two Christmas dinners with two different sets of friends who are more like family. I've had multiple glasses of mulled wine without freaking out about the calories. I might be bigger than last year, but already I'm more present. I choose presence in my own life over being thin any day...
I am reminded of the quote I used at the end of the Christmas message I gave last year at December's IMPACT! event:
"God loves us enough to meet us exactly as we are; but too much to leave us that way"
This year hasn't been easy, by any means, but it is certainly full of evidence of this faithfulness shown by my loving, powerful God. I am so blessed.
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