Day #21 - Healers with Heart

There have been many "healers" on my journey to health that I could talk about today.  So many wonderful professionals, in their own different ways, have given me different pieces of recovery that have, as a whole, finally (or darn near close) made me well.  I am so lucky and blessed to have been able to work with so many amazing people while on this journey to wellness, but I knew without a doubt today that I needed to write about my current therapist, as I believe that she has played the most intricate role in my recovery:

Healers with heart...

Dear Owner of the Immortal Ugly Scarf,

Today, I have something simple to offer you - and that is my gratitude.  When I first shuffled into your office nearly three years ago, I was a shell of a human being, or, as I often refer to myself back then - a robot.  I tried to convince you I didn't need you or anyone else or anything.  My walls were sky-high, and I was determined not to let you or anyone in.

Photos - Mila sportin the Immortal Ugly Scarf

But, slowly, you helped me kick those walls in, even when it left us both tired and exhausted and frustrated.  I remember first learning to trust you when Kendall died, because you were there for me wholly and simply and unequivocally, and you didn't flinch away from my grief, like so many others did.  You have showed me that it is possible to have a therapist who not only cares like hell but who also maintains boundaries.  You have showed me that it is possible to laugh and have fun and joke, even when going through something as hellish and heartbreaking as an eating disorder.

You have kicked me.  Literally.  (It didn't hurt, though.  :)  And you have also proverbially kicked my ass, and refused to allow me to settle for my eating disorder. (It's a DAMN consolation prize, as Dr. B would say...)  You have pushed me to the brink of what I thought I could handle, but in doing that, you helped me tap that deep reservoir of strength and resilience and POWER I never knew I had.

You have told me often that I can piss you off, I can frustrate you, but that I can never ever do anything that would make you stop caring about me.  And while that surprises me, because isn't everything in life so fickle? -- it also comforts me and gladdens me and gives me faith that the rest of humanity might not suck, because if you care, maybe others do too.

Now, nearly three years later, I still need you, but I need you in a different way.  I no longer need you to tell me that my anorexia is going to kill me if I don't get my act together, or that I'm a dramatic whiner when I'm complaining about weight gain, (butbutbut weight gain succcckkkkked!) but I need you to remind me that recovery is sustainable, and that it is worth it.  I need you to help me work on the more serious issues underneath the sufacey behavior stuff, to really clean the gunk out of my life once and for all.

When I walk into your office now, I am healthy, and I have reclaimed Life, and there isn't anything about me that's robotic!  And I am so happy that I am finding my way, and that you have been the one to help me find it.  I am happy I have you, because I really and truly believe I wouldn't be in recovery without you - sure, I may have found it some way, somehow along the way, but probably in like a gajillion years from now when I was like 65 and still sportin' a tube and children's size pants.  And that would suck.  Children's pants never!  Big girl sizes forever!

So, you're da raddest.  Thanks for saving me.  Or, rather, showing me how to save myself.

Sincerely,
Brie