loved ones think i'm in recovery
...but i'm anything but. food and calorie counting and my body image and weight are what cycles around my brain most of the day, every day, when i'm not drowning in other self deprecating thoughts. it's exhausting. i've lived with depression and anxiety and insomnia for years, been yo-yo'ing between recovery and relapsing the various shapes my ed has taken (an-r, bulimia and every type of purging imaginable, etc.). this most recent relapse cycle has been the longest, nearly two years now, and it's by far the most exhausting part of my life. i wish i could turn my brain off and just commit to recovering and letting go of this albatross.
but in my brain, recovery means weight gain. i'm underweight, which feels extra humiliating as an adult with a bmi that bounces between 16.8-17.2 on the days when i'm not getting bowled over from water retention and undigested food weight bloating out my stomach. but being this weight is the only thing i feel moderately good about in my life. i've tried a host of anti depressants with really no progress, my sleep meds for insomnia are largely ineffective, but this, this ed, my weight, it's fully in my control and relinquishing it terrifies me. but i'm so very tired of living like this. i shouldn't feel like the world is ending if i have to change jeans sizes or if something fits snugly on me. i hate this part of me, but there's a comfort in the control when it feels like i have so little everywhere else.
i'm supposed to be seeing a new psychiatrist in a little under a month that's designed to treat both mental disorders and sleep disorders. truthfully i feel like she's my last shot at getting better or getting somewhere with all of this. i don't know what ill do if it's another dead end with more meds that don't stop the thoughts and meditation suggestions that i struggle to focus on because my brain is all consumed by everything else. it feels so lonely and so very exhausting. i'm too old for this behavior. i've already had to quit my job and am living with my family again as a grown adult. how much lower will this sink me? i'm so tempted to really give up, but i force myself to remember the love and time my family pours into me and how they truly have hope for a future for me on the "other side" of all this. i can't help but wonder if they'd say that if they knew how abhorrent my thoughts really are. im a shameful creature.
