30 Day Recovery Challenge: Day 15

15. What does your weight/body image mean to you? How has your body image changed throughout recovery - has it gotten harder or easier to deal with?

It still means too much to me.  At least my weight does.  And my weight is inexplicably tied to my self-esteem, which is inexplicably tied to my body image.

Honestly, my body image has suffered as recovery has strengthened.  It's gotten a lot harder to deal with the false reality I've convinced myself is true.  My eating disorder kept my emotions and feelings buried.  And I liked it that way.  It was as if my eating disorder was the cork that kept things bottled up.

Now that recovery is part of my vocabulary, there isn't anything keeping those feelings and emotions buried.  Instead, I have to handle them as they arise, which is something I don't do well.  At least not yet.  Because those emotions are now free flowing, and I'm feeling everything, my self-esteem is suffering more, and my body image is worse.

I know that will change over time, I mean, I lived with an eating disorder for more than half my life, and I've only been working towards recovery for a year and a half.  More than that, my recovery has been stable for nearly six months.  It's going to take time to undo all the bad habits that were built up over this life of mine.

So while at the moment, things feel worse, and are much harder than the were before recovery, I know that things will be better, much better, down the road......