I haven't been sleeping for the past two weeks. At night I'll walk around my apartment for hours, trudging up and down the stairs as my thoughts run rampant. When my legs finally become tired I'll lay down, toss and turn, listen to my dog snore for a couple hours and eventually put in my earbuds and listen to Birdy until I have sufficiently drenched my pillow with tears.
I've been what's known as weight restored for three weeks now. In other words, I have fully restored my weight prior to the onset of my eating disorder. After years of negative thoughts every time I put a piece of food in my mouth and over a year of recovery, I can finally say that eating is almost no longer an issue.
Being weight restored is such a strange feeling. In just six months, I have transitioned from eating as little as possible to enjoying almost any food you put in front of me. Pasta, grilled cheese, cookies, chocolate, peanut butter and, although I hate to admit it, I've been eating a lot of junk food. Overall, I eat many of the things that I refused to let enter my mouth for years. (As I should!)
But sometimes I will take a bite of something and it will taste so amazing and I will feel so good, that I do not know how to stop. It can be something as simple as a PB&J and next thing I know I'll be half way through the jar of peanut butter. I'll hear the cautionary voices... Emily, you should stop...You are full....You shouldn't be eating all of this. But, for so long I deprived myself of these delicious flavors and for so long I was a slave to the voice in my head that literally tried to kill me, that now I have no trust in myself. How can I? How do I know that this isn't the same voice that shamed me into two years of pain and suffering? It's truly and utterly terrifying. Some days I feel as if I am literally losing my mind.
Meanwhile, my body has gone through a massive change. Don't get me wrong, this is good! But for someone who was practically emaciated for over a year, I'd be lying if I said that gaining weight hasn't been difficult. This time last year I was struggling to keep a pair of double zero jeans from falling off my hips. Now, I find myself giving that same pair of jeans to Goodwill because they are no where close to fitting up my thighs. Sometimes I'll look in the mirror and feel beyond happy with my appearance. My skin is radiant, my hair is healthy and I finally have my butt back. But most of the time, I have to literally force myself to walk away from my reflection. Do you know what it feels like to literally hate the reflection that is staring back at you? It's beyond conflicting. It's like all of my anxiety and self-hate that I used to associate with eating is now staring back at me every time I see my reflection. That, my friends, is poor body image. Check that, terrible body image. For someone who preaches that we should love and respect our bodies, I am a textbook hypocrite. Why do I spend hours critiquing myself in a mirror? Why do I feel less worthy of love and respect because I don't meet this unrealistic standard of perfection that I have created in my mind? Why do I do this to myself?
I don't know.
But what I do know is that I want to change. I recovered from an eating disorder, so I know that I can do this. With a little hard work and dedication, I can shift my mindset, learn to love my body and replace my unrealistic ideals of perfectionism with positive self-talk and self-love. I can no longer bear to stand in front of a mirror and critique every inch of my body, listing all of the things I despise about myself. I can't wake up with dried tears sticking to my cheeks. I need sleep. I need sanity. I need to rejoice in how far I've come instead of dwell on my imperfections. I need to love myself.
if you were born with
the weakness to fall
you were born with
the strength to rise
Rupi Kaur
