Getting to know me.

So I am on day 4 here. Today by far has been the hardest. I have had to delve deep into my past. To talk about things that are not very comfortable for me to talk about, let alone with strangers. I have had to remember things that I would rather not think about. Ask myself questions about my past that I would like to leave buried and not bring to the surface. And of course, I have cried.

     I cry because the remembering brings up all the old wounds. Wounds that I let just get covered over and never really got healed. I never accepted them and just dealt with them. They are easier to stuff down inside. Easier to hide away and not have to look at them.

     So in looking at them, I have to feel. I have to recognize that they are hurtful and they make me feel very uncomfortable. I would rather pretend that everything is fine and I am perfectly ok. Addressing them means I must also take accountability for my decisions that may have lead to certain circumstances or problems. Yes it would be easy to just blame others for all my problems. To say that I had a bad childhood therefore I do what I do. But that is not the truth.

     Even if things were bad for me, it does not excuse my behavior. It does not make it ok to binge and purge. It does not mean that I can just run around practicing poor judgment and bad habits.  It does not give me the right to hurt myself, belittle myself, or to have bad thoughts about who I am. It means that I do not have to hide behind my weight. That it is ok for me to just be me.

     There in lies the problem, I don't really know who I am. I always thought I did but I see now that I wasn't truly me, I was just being whoever I thought others wanted me to be. To behave or look a certain way because I thought that is what others expected. Never being able to live up to what I thought others wanted me to be, I became frustrated. I began to loathe who I was, I didn't like the person I saw in the mirror anymore. I felt so unworthy of love or even friendship.

     I really lost my voice. Or felt like I didn't deserve to even have a voice. I felt like I just needed to be quite and go along with what everyone else wanted of me. To do what they said or always volunteer to do what others didn't want to. I never knew the word no. It wasn't in my vocabulary. I worried that if I ever said no, that person would no longer like me. That they would never talk to me again, That they may no longer be a part of my life, or worse, they would, but they would be mean and hateful to me.  That is something I just could never take. It felt to personal, like it was my fault that someone didn't like me.

     Here, I am learning that if someone chooses not to like me, that is their feelings and no reflection on who I am as a person. That it is impossible for me to please everyone all the time. In attempting to do this, I invalidate myself and make myself feel meaningless.  That I am beautiful in any shape and that being healthy is more important than what the scale says. The mirror is just a reflection of the outside and in no way represents who I am as a person. That I have value and worth that goes far beyond my clothing size.

     I am many different things and many things to different people. I am a child of God first and foremost. I am a wife, mother, daughter, sister, niece, cousin, friend and co-worker. That what I have to offer is important to those I touch each and everyday. I don't have to matter to everyone, I just need to matter to one person. I need to be true to myself and value my self before anyone else can value me. Its hard because all I have ever done is negative self talk. I always tried to compare myself to others and once I found myself lacking, I would act out my bad choices. I hated what I was doing but at the same time, I was comfortable in it. I couldn't control what was going on around me but I could control my eating disorder. Of course now I realize that I was telling myself a lie.

     So I am now learning to value myself first. To understand that I am not going to look like others around me because God created us all to be different. We may like similar things but we are very individual. And I recognize that I am a beautiful creation of God's and that He made me just the way he wanted me to be. He has a purpose for my life. One that means living behavior free. No longer feeling like I must always shove my feelings aside for others so that they are happy. I am not in control of their happiness only mine.

     So now I need to focus on me and my recovery. Stop worrying about every else's problems. I can't solve their needs. I can only work on my own problems. And that is ok. I don't have to.

     Well I am exhausted. Today I have been run through the emotional ringer. I am going to bed and I know tomorrow will be another day of peeling back to the layers to find out who I really am. I am excited to see what lies ahead. Good night and God bless.