Who I am without you

"It is breaking my code of ethics to continue to treat you when I am not qualified to do so."

I squeezed Joe's hand.

My therapist continued to explain that my eating disorder is not going to get better under her care. That all that anxiety and depression... everything is so masked by this eating disorder that nothing really will get better until that's taken care of.

She turned to Joe.

"This is something you get better from, or you die from. There is nothing else."

I waited for her to laugh or say loljk or something. Nothing.
So now I'm on a new journey.

The eating disorder isn't something I've talked about. Not with my parents, not with Joe, no one. Somehow I got the courage to mention it to my last therapist in the last 3 minutes of our session. When I moved to a new therapist, she passed along notes, which very briefly mentioned eating disorders. She really brought it out and dug into it. Dug hard. It made me realize a lot of things.

For one, I have an eating disorder. It's an ugly thing. I weigh myself constantly. I care deeply about every 2 oz gained or lost. I look in the mirror and I don't know what I see. I don't know what my own body looks like. I eat a slice or two of toast a day and I hate myself for even eating that. And even as I'm writing this, I know that I'm probably gonna cut back on that today too, because it's time to get down to business. If this eating disorder is going away, then it and I need to have a heckuva time together before it's bye bye.

And that sounds ridiculous but it feels so true. I've come to truly love this eating disorder. I recognize that it beats me and that if I upset it, I will end up black and blue, maybe in the hospital. But I've been with it for so long SO LONG. Over a decade. That I don't know who I am without it. We've built a life together. We have dreams together, of our future. It has been there for me when I felt alone, or out of control. It empowered me in ways that nothing else could.

It also convinced me that everything else was the enemy. That my body was stubborn and bitter for holding onto weight. That it really wasn't as abusive to me as others said it would, that it was normal and that it was sorry for hurting me and that it would be better next time. And I forgave it. I forgive it still. Every time. Because even though I know it is slowly taking everything from me, it feels so much a part of me that I would no sooner try to escape than I would cut off my own arm.

But I see people on the other side and they seem happy. I don't know who I am on the other side so it feels impossible to imagine myself there. I know that it destroys my confidence, and more than I want to be thin, I want to feel confident, I want to love my body and feel like it is worth something, it has a place in this world. Other people pump my mind full of reassurance but it doesn't hold. My mind has been so taken over by this monster that it's full of holes. Logic pours out. Love pours out. All that stays is the eating disorder. The script it reads me that it's not enough, I'm not doing enough, I'm not enough.

It's loud.

It beats along like a metronome, and all that doesn't keep time with it, isn't real music.

When your therapist tells you that it's get better or die, why isn't that a straight forward choice.

If I knew that I could love myself, if I knew what I could do and be without it, that would be a whole new game plan. But I don't know.

I contacted the care center last night. I'm waiting for the specialist to get back to me with the results of my initial evaluation.

I don't want to do this. At all. If I could just lose xx lbs before doing this, oh how easy it would be. Maybe I wouldn't even need to go get care at all, maybe that weight loss would give me the confidence I need to just be done with it!

And I've told myself that before. It didn't stay true for long. Because the controlling partner that it is won't let me be free without an intervention.

Which is what I got last night at therapy.

My therapist wanted me to write about it. To put a very bright light on this secret part of my life so that I could see that it was ugly, that other people would know. That I wouldn't deflect and say "I'm fine I'm fine though!" because that enables me still.

Ugh.

This post doesn't have a happy ending because I don't know what it looks like. Right now I feel unhappy. Right now I feel like I'm going to have to walk away from something that has brain washed me into loving it, but regardless, I do love it. It feels like the absolute scariest thing I could do. To possibly end up gaining weight at the end of this. Something that makes me feel physically ill right now, faint.

Well.

So there it is. There's the light on the dark places.