#10 - Only Words?

Only words?

5 words that describe my eating disorder:

1. NEEDLESS:  I know that eating disorders serve a purpose, at least at first.  They numb the pain, help you forget the heavy stuff that threatens to smother you.  But I also know that all that time wasted on calculating calories, and weighing yourself relentlessly, and making your quest being able to fit in the next smallest jean size...all of that is needless.  It's wasted time.  It's the very definition of crazy, that we've all heard in EDA: the definition of crazy is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results. 

2. NOXIOUS:  My eating disorder was like poison to me.  It was slowly killing me.  And the little effer was PERNICIOUS.  It wouldn't stop, not until I was dead.  It corrupted my body and my soul.

3.  DEADLY:  Self-explanatory.  It's aim was to kill me.  Nothing less would do.  And, even when it hadn't yet killed me literally, it killed my soul.  I was a walking, talking, breathing robot.  A shell of a person.  It took away me.  The essence of me.

4. BLEAK:  There was no future when I was in my eating disorder.  I couldn't get past the very day in front of me; just trying to survive that day was all I had in me.  The future was bleak, my life was bleak and dismal and gray.  It's like I was living in a fog, a thick fog that never dissipated.  Maybe that's what hell is like.

5. ENSLAVED:  I was the slave, my anorexia The Master.  I subjugated to it.  What it wanted, I gave it.  My life, my personality, my strength, my hope.  My essence.  Everything.  I didn't think I could be free; the price it required - recovery - to get there, seemed too high a fee.  It seemed like I would always be its slave.  But I broke the chains that bound me.  And then I was free.

5 words that describe my recovery:

1. FRAGILE:  Recovery from an eating disorder is delicate and fragile.  It's easy to break, but keeping it whole and safe, is so very worth it. 

2. GIFT:  I believe recovery is a gift.  And while it's a hard gift to come by, I believe that every man and woman suffering from an eating disorder is worthy and capable of getting this gift.  For me personally, I believe it was a gift from God.  It's maybe the best gift I've ever received; almost like all my birthdays and christmases wrapped up all at once.  And I cherish it.

3. LOVE:  I had to include love, because now that I am in recovery, my life is so much more full of love.  Love for myself, love for my family, and my friends.  Love for eating and laughing, and love for having energy, and helping others, and developing newfound relationships.  Love for breathing, and love for vitality.  Love maybe encompasses everything I do now, everything I am now.

4. PLENTIFUL:  Without the eating disorder in my life, I feel as if there are so many blessings in my life that are plentiful.  Happiness.  Laughter.  Joy.  I had no room in my life before to experience any of this, as the anorexia took it all for me.  Plentiful was not in my vocabulary, but maybe the word scarce was.  Food was scarce.  Laughter was scarce.  Life was even scarce.  But now everything in my life is bounteous.  I have so much good in my life, and so much more good to come.

5. PROGRESSIVE:  Brandon has always said to me, that maybe the thing he loves about me most, is that I am a "woman of progression."  He says that at any stage in my life, I am always trying to change myself to be a better person.  To love others a little more, or to maybe have a little more patience, or a little more goodwill to others.  When I was in the eating disorder, I was stagnant - either that, or slowly shuffling towards death.  But now that I'm in recovery, I have this beautiful opportunity to grow and change into the person I know I was always capable of being; the person I know I was always meant to be.  And it feels so amazing.