H.O.P.E

H.O.P.E

Thursday, April 10, 2014

Let go

I've been thinking a lot recently about letting things go. 
It's a phrase that holds a lot of meaning for me, to allow yourself to just 'let go'. I will always remember when someone looked up at me at a very crucial part in my recovery and said  
'Sami just let go, it's time to let it go' and it was like all of a sudden I could breathe.
It's hard to let go of things that you have been desperately clinging to for so long, be it due to fear, saftey, habitual, stability, sanity ect but sometimes you have to trust that it's what has to be done. 
I suppose that's where I am at them moment, wanting to just take a deep breathe in, trust, leap and let it go.

I have had a few epiphany moments recently and I feel like I'm all of a sudden I'm starting to see clearer then I ever have before.
 But for some reason it's almost like an undercurrent of positivity, a sense of recovery, yet not exactly the actions to correlate with the feelings.
Yet it's more then just talking the talk and not walking the walk. I'm not just saying all these positive things to seem 'ok' to seem 'better' or further along in recovery then I actually am, I say them because I wholeheartedly mean them.

After having a discussion with a really good friend the other day I took myself away and had a think to myself. The situation I'm in right now could easily lead me to a relapse, and a bad one at that. I realize this, yet, I don't want to. I'm not claiming it's ever a choice, it's not, my last relapse was not a conscious plan that I thought would be 'fun', of course not, it was all consuming and I was, at the time, powerless to it. I'm not explaining this very well, basically, bottom line, each time I've tried to get better for a reason, for my family, husband, DMP course, license to practice, for a new life with my best friend, for a fresh start ect ect. There has always been some kind of reason.

This is the very first time I've ever thought and FELT that I want to recover for ME. 

I find myself saying to myself, 'Im so done with this, I want more, I want a life, I want to move on, I want to be happy, I want to help people, I want to meet someone, I want a family, I want a LIFE' and I do, I really really do. For once I feel like this 'normality' that I crave is within my grasp if I just trust myself and take that leap. 
I never used to even be able to imagine my life without this, it was always that I would just manage, just cope and juggle having a life with an eating disorder, now I know that I want and can have a life without it. I no longer see it as part of me, some form of identity ect in fact it's not something I even consider to be part of who I am anymore.

After hearing all the speculations about Peaches Geldof dying from an Eating Disorder I realised, this could kill anyone at any stage. I've know people at a healthy BMI in recovery that just die because of the stress they have put their bodies through. I don't want that to be me. For some I suppose this is a slow form of suicide, but it isn't for me. I don't want to die from this, I want my life.
I spoke to my mum on the phone when I was going through a rough patch a couple of weeks ago and, selfishly, said to her that I wished Anorexia had just killed me, finished me off the last time because I couldnt cope with the fear of relapse and going through it all again. I was upset but those words shocked me, I don't want to be that girl, the girl that lost the fight, I want to be the girl that fought and won and lived.

I never imagined that my ED would still be a part of my life at 24, I thought it was something I could just forget about when I 'grew up'. I've wasted too much time already and if I continue to be stuck in recovery I will still have this as part of my life when I am in my 30's, 40's, 50's ect

I don't want to be 50 odd and look back and just see a fight with Anorexia. 
I want to look back and see achievements, family, laughter, LIFE. 

I say all of this, and I mean it, trust me I mean it, yet I am still stuck. 
I am not relapsing, but I am not recovering either. I am playing it safe. Playing it scared.
When I moved to Exeter I was recovering, full speed ahead, now I am no where near that in actions, but so much closer in head space. Which, I know, makes no sense.
I am not obsessing like I used to, this doesn't take up all of my head space. It's half and half. When it doesn't come to eating I don't really think about the things I used too (anorexia wise), its not something that has a grip over my day to day life.
I won't say in what ways or how as I don't want to trigger others but all I do know is that I am not acting on my positivity and it's almost like my brain is split in two. 

I suppose this could just be the edge of my journey, one final push to jump over that ledge and into freedom. One final hurrah. Maybe thats where we will all get to, that defining moment where you finally turn your back on the destruction that an ED really brings. 

When you can see so clearly that there is no control, there is no happiness and that it's all just lies, that life holds the real promise and potential. 

I know I have been rambling but if you take anything from this entry please just ask yourself this....
 Do you really want this for the rest of your life? 
Do you really want to wake up in your later years and just see a constant journey through recovery relapse recovery relapse when you could of had life?
Is it worth it?

Life goes by so fast, I've already wasted too much time in this shittyness, have you?