How perspective changed my outlook on recovery

"Your life is the manifestation of your dream; it is an art. And you can change your life anytime you aren't enjoying the dream."

 I finished reading "The Four Agreements" by Don Miguel Ruiz this week; a small book, but large on wisdom. I underlined, left sticky notes on passages I wanted to go back on and remember, and called my mom to read her select passages.

Talking to my therapist this week, I told her I felt stuck. Unknowingly, the wisdom from the book allowed me to talk myself out of the negative thoughts I was thinking, by re-framing those negative thoughts into positive ones.

 I was frustrated by the amount I was eating and how hungry I had felt all week. I felt tired and as if I wanted a nap all the time.

"I feel fat," I told her, quickly realizing this was a thought that often plagued me when I was in the depths of my eating disorder. "I'm eating so much, but I'm just so hungry, I don't know why."

In the middle of me complaining, I told her it was something that usually happened the week before I got my period.

 By acknowledging out loud the normalcy of increased hunger before my time of the month, I felt less guilt.

"Then when I do get my period, I don't feel as hungry," I told her.

Something I learned in recovery when I was experiencing "extreme hunger", though of course this is not that, is that those periods don't last forever. By reminding myself that, the period of time began to feel less overwhelming.

With that, more feelings came up. Even though I "felt fat", I understood it was only a feeling, and it would pass. When I was in the depths of my eating disorder, one of my goals I set for recovery, was to be able to comfortably fit into a pair of jeans and fill them out. At the time, I couldn't find a pair that fit me anywhere. All of the pairs I tried on where either too big around the waist, too big in the legs, or both. I desperately missed my curves and feeling sexy. Now, what was I going to do complain about filling my jeans too much? Hell no! I was thankful that I could wear them.

When I was in the depths of my eating disorder, I wore pads on my ass. This is not a joke. My butt had so little fat, that my doctors said without the pads, I could risk bruising my bones any time I sat or laid down. They were sticky pads that stuck with hospital grade glue right to the bare skin on my ass. Yes, it hurt every time the doctors changed the pads every day, like extra large bandages were being ripped in one go, right from my bare skin. Not ideal.