When Are You Due?

I bet many expectant parents hear this question a lot.  It makes sense, right?  They're pregnant, and people looking to strike up a conversation will ask the obvious.  And I bet many expectant parents are more than happy to answer the question.

Well I'm not.  Because I'm not an expectant parent.

I am recovering from an eating disorder.  There, I said it.  I've danced around the topic a lot on the blog, but I don't know that I've come outright and said that before.

In the not-so-distant past, a complete stranger came up to me, attempted to put her hand on my extremely bloated belly as she asked the dreaded question.  I was shocked.  I mean, I know by evening I am bloated.  I hate it.  But pregnant?  Really?  That is SO not something to say to me.

That comment, as innocent as it may have been (the woman needs to be smacked upside the head as lesson one in learning tact) it flipped my world upside down and sent me into a dangerous spiral.

See, my recovery has only been strong for about two months.  That's not long enough to let a comment like this not rock the boat.  I do not want to throw the last year and a half's worth of work away.  My team has worked too hard to get me to where I am, stable for two months.  But I am so, so, so, discouraged right now.  All that work, all that effort, all that pain......... I mean, my body image has been really bad for years, and while recovery has stabilized my weight and my physical health, I still struggle with the body image blues.  Big time.  And for the last few weeks, it's been exceptionally miserable in the mirror.  This didn't help.

This time around, it wasn't a number that set me off.  It was a stupid stranger.  An inconsiderate, thoughtless, possibly-well-meaning, stranger.  And my former best bud Ed is  holding the door wide open, inviting me back into the relationship that I worked so hard to leave behind.