There's No Method To This Madness

I feel so divided right now between what I am doing, and what I should be doing. I know better than this. Years of treatment have forever entrenched into my head that I do indeed need to eat. And yet, deep down, at my core, I don't believe that it's necessary. I don't see why it's so essential. I know the science, the facts, the physiological reasons behind nourishing the body, and yet on an emotional level, it seems so unnecessary, so absurd, so self-indulgent.

I feel like I should be taking better care of myself, and then find myself questioning, "why?". What have I done to deserve to eat? What have I done to deserve to feel strong and healthy? What is the point in taking on energy when I don't particularly want to face whatever challenge tomorrow brings?

Then of course, there is the basic survival mechanism that kicks in. I'm sleeping a maximum of 3-4 hours a night. My feet feel numb and tingly, my body shivering, my thoughts racing, my nights haunted by images of food leaving me stumbling around the house at 3am, weighing myself, just to 'make sure' that it was, indeed, nothing more than a dream.

It hit me today that I am back in the UK- yes, it's taken a while. It also hit me what I have left behind. I feel like a piece of ME was left behind. I started crying as I was waiting for the bus...on my way "home", and yet feeling like "home" doesn't exist anymore. I am so incredibly lonely here. I miss my friends, I miss my regular therapy appointments, I miss having reasons to get up each day, a purpose. I miss what could have been, rather than what *was*. I am still clinging to this fantasy that I have in my head about how life in New York COULD have been. And yet wasn't. It wasn't until today that I started to miss it, romanticise it, want to try again.

But I can't.

I am left trying to pick up the pieces or the horrible mess I am left with, and falling apart in the process.

I have no sense of what I want to do right now. Until today, I have been completely shut off from feeling anything, and now the heartache has set in. The numbness that initial restriction brings is starting to wear off, and there is an aching longing, yearning, wanting...for something that I don't know if I can ever have back again.

Pick myself up, dust myself off, start all over again, right? No. It doesn't work like that. Radical acceptance? Perhaps. Or maybe more of a begrudging acceptance. This is what happened, this is where I am now. How do I deal with it? I don't know the answer to that. All I know is that it hurts like hell, more than I will ever be able to put into words, and that I am dealing with it the only way I can right now.