Week 11: Recovery

Recovery of what?  My dignity?  Never really had much of that to begin with!  How about my sense of humor?  Eh, that's debatable.  Exactly what am I trying to recover from?  Can I just say "life" and leave it at that?

Didn't think so.

So, it turns out that I must have been born an overachiever, as I seem to have skipped several developmental stages and life experiences while growing up.  And part of what this "recovery" process is all about is learning to move through all those skipped stages and experiences, now.

So.  Not.  Easy.

It isn't easy to do things you don't want to do, even though you know you have to.  It isn't easy convincing yourself that the excruciatingly painful work you are doing is worth it.  It isn't easy acknowledging and accepting that you have something from which it is necessary to recover in the first place.

Don't stress- we're not talking a life-threatening illness from which I will never recover, and I am grateful for that.  But it is something that requires accepting that there is a problem in the first place.  It also requires making a commitment to overcome that problem, and a willingness to accept help from those supporting the journey.  All of which I struggled with.  And frankly, at times, I still do.

When I look in the mirror I see a very different person than what the rest of the world sees.  The twisted perception I have of myself turned into an unmanageable and semi-dangerous lifestyle pattern that wasn't (isn't) very healthy.  And that has become a daily challenge that I live with.  Sometimes I just want to give up, not bother fighting anymore, and keep moving forward, unhealthy as it may be.  Sometimes I'm just too afraid to keep trying to get better.  Sometimes it doesn't seem worth the struggle. 

But life is.  Life is worth all the pain and agony and struggle and tears and hurt and stress and fear and frustration and everything else that sucks about going through this right now.  Life is worth living, but it can't be lived the way I was living, at least not for long.  I've been promised that all this work will be worth it when I arrive on the other side, the recovered side, where mirrors aren't the enemy, food is a friend, and life is worth living to it's very fullest expression. 

"Just when the caterpillar thought life 

was over, it became a butterfly."
-- Anonymous