It's time to get a grip. Everyone around you is changing and moving on, and you are still acting the same way you did when you were 13. Then you wonder why you don't have a real job or friends or can't live in New York. You've had chances time after time after time to turn things around and your half-hearted attempts have been nothing short of pathetic. Everyone you lived with for all those years in hospital have either 1) recovered, 2) died, or 3) still spend their lives drifting aimlessly from one institution to the next. Why are you you SO torn between the 3 options? Why can you not just grow the hell up and move on from this? You SAY you want a LIFE- that you want to live in New York, have friends/a social life, go back to dancing, write a book, have a career. You say all this stuff about all these cool things you WANT to do with your life, but at the end of the day, you choose a number on a scale over and above everything else. It's gotten old. It doesn't MATTER what you weigh or precisely how many grams of protein you eat. NOBODY CARES. It's not important in the grand scheme of things if you eat X calories or X + 5 calories. You are the only one who is counting. People have given up and turned their backs. The ones that HAVE stuck around feel obligated to do so because of parental obligations or moral duties of care. Friends? Relatives? Colleagues? They don't want to watch you play this childlike game anymore. It's boring, it's self-centred and it's not getting you anywhere you want to be going.
If you want change, MAKE IT HAPPEN. Let go of the stupid irrational fears and anxieties. Stop obsessing over numbers. Stop comparing yourself to everyone else around you- accept what you ARE because you just ARE WHAT YOU ARE. Whether you like it or not, you are always going to be YOU. Deal with it. Yeah, the economy sucks, a job might suck, people might still hate you/be angry with you. The world, on the whole, can be a crappy, lonely and stressful place. Everyone else just sucks it up and deals with it, taking the good with the bad- what is so different about YOU that if it's not 100% perfect, you don't want any part of it? It's such an immature way of viewing situations. You act like a spoilt brat- things don't go your way? "Oh yeah...let's see how much weight I can lose then I'll somehow become a valuable person again." Seriously. Buck up.
Whatever point you were originally trying to prove has been proven a LONG time ago- do you even remember what it was? Didn't think so. Likely that there never was a real 'point' to be made and somehow things happened and you fell into a habit of self-destructing anytime things get rough and never actually bothered to try handling things differently.
Starving isn't the answer. Exercising isn't the answer. Diet pills aren't the answer. Hospital isn't the answer. The answer doesn't lie in behaviours or interventions from doctors- you don't even know what the damn question is anymore so how will you know when you HAVE the answer? Maybe you had it all along.
Stop complaining that everyone has moved on with their lives and that you feel left behind. Did you expect them to wait forever? People grow up and move on. It's time you did the same. Pull your thoughts away from obsessing over what weight you are/want to be and see the truth: none of that is important. Friends, family, job, travelling, LIFE- that is what's important. Not how much/how little you eat. Life shrinks and expands in proportion to courage- you say that all the time. yet you complain how 'small' your world is, how you never do the things you dream of... It's up to YOU to make the dreams a reality rather than wallowing in misery and obsessions and never actually taking action.
Get over yourself. You are sick of this and you know it. And everyone around you is sick of it too.
the real ellie x
Some pictures?..
Breakfast this morning was more pumpkin...
Banana oats (oats, milk, vanilla, pinch of salt, cinnamon, mashed banana) with pumpkin, topped with white chocolate wonder peanut butter.
Lunch was a repeat of yesterday:
"Turkey and stuffing" flavoured quorn, laughing cow cheese, cranberry sauce, pumpkin and spinach on a wholewheat roll. I am so in love with quorn products right now- I like the "ham" slices better than these though. Much less 'fake' tasting. (And yes, the weather is still inspiring fall/winter foods. Someone send me some sunshine!)
Snack today was dictated by my sore throat and cold...
Mini chocolate and raisin oatibix with milk, soaked for a while to go mushy! This cereal is great- it's not sweet at all aside from the chocolate chips and raisins (though it is lacking in the raisin department- next time I'll add my own!)
Usual disclaimer: everything pictured has been eaten, not everything eaten has been pictured.
I'm really upset that all the stores in Edinburgh seem to have stopped selling Amy's burritos. I can still get a few of the meals, but I LOVE the burritos and they are nowhere to be found. So sad. I ended up rather impulsively buying a bunch of ready-made entrees today. I don't know quite what the appeal was at the time and shoved them in the freezer as soon as I got home. I guess it will force me to branch out from my usual foods and have some new stuff, but seriously... I need to stop buying food. I have plenty to use up! So pictures over the next couple of weeks will hopefully be repetitive (boring for you guys- good for my wallet :P)
Hope everyone is having a good weekend!
9 comments:
It sounds like you have a lot going on!
You are not expected to be perfect. You will get through this xo
I love this post. You are soo right. No one else notices this stuff, so why do we obsess over it?! Way to go with the no BS!!
Aw Ellie...I know it's frustrating, but maybe that anger would be better channelled towards the disorder rather than yourself. I want to kick my own butt half way round the world quite frequently too, but I don't think that really achieves anything more than lying down and taking it does. There are so many really good points in this post - yeah, anorexia IS ultimately pointless, and although it served a purpose years ago there does come a time when people mostly cling to it through habit and to deal with the mess that the anorexia itself has caused. But at the same time, if it were just a case of pulling yourself together you would have done so by now. Hell, no one would have an eating disorder if that was all it took! This taking things slowly business is incredibly frustrating, but taking that frustration out on yourself isn't going to make recovery happen any quicker.
I hope you're ok <3
xx
you have proven in this post that u are so ready to recover and you will succeed im sure of it xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I can definitely relate to your "letter" there - somehow we always talk and talk and talk, but do we *really* want to recover?
It's honestly not until recently that I think the answer has been YES for me. And let me tell you, I'm looking at the world with a whole new pair of eyes, and it's just wonderful.
It would be a lie if I said I don't struggle, I don't body check, I don't measure my food, etc. But I'm slowly learning that letting go is for the best. So what if my weight goes up or down...I haven't been happy all these years. It's time to be happy. YOU deserve to be happy.
Time to let go!
Much love <3
right on, ellie! great letter to yourself, though I would think it's more to ED. It's tough getting rid of all those fears and anxieties, but sometimes even before we get rid of it, we just have to BITE THE BULLET and just DO it. otherwise we'll be dilly-dallying and wasting life away. You have so much potential in you ellie, so don't let ED limit you and waste your life away. But I thik you've already realized it, and kudos to you! and you know we're all here to support you and root you on!
That is a great letter... though yeah, it's better to view it as addressed toward something other than yourself. Why be mean to YOU??
Sucks about the Amy's burritos... just as I started finding Amy's everywhere, The Great Calamity occurred. ;)
Hey Ellie,
This was a really powerful post, but I hope that you aren't too hard on yourself. You've been through a lot and you're giving this your all, and I can't imagine how frustrating it is to feel like you're spinning your tires when the rest of the world around you keeps moving on...but I think you need to remember that YOU are NOT your eating disorder. You need to separate the eating disorder from yourself - be pissed off at it, not at yourself. Get rid of the scale. Smash it, office space style. Strip away all of the little tools that ED uses to try to keep you in his grips.
You can do this.
Much love,
Elle
Ellie,
AMEN! Will the real Ellie please stand up? Listen to her. She's pretty darn smart! ;P
Have a great Sunday darlin,
With Love,
Emily
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