Outpatient...a privelege not a right

So today my doc called my dad and basically convinced him that I need inpatient treatment due to my low weight and inability to progress. I still am not going to go inpatient, but realized in that moment that recovering outpatient isn't a right, it's something that has to be earned. You have to show the maturity in your recovery to make the right decisions even when no one is watching and to tell your team and learn from the times you don't.
I realized from this phone call I am fighting for the privilege of recovering outpatient (a big motivation for me because I don't want to go inpatient again and be stuck in the cycle of being in and out of treatment centers). Recovering outpatient isn't something I am guaranteed and I can only refuse inpatient so many times before I am forced to go. So I have to make my own little inpatient on the outside. I have to hold myself up to the standards of inpatient treatment. This means full portions, challenge meals, and sticking to my exercise contract. For the most part I do this, but on occasional days my portions slide. Luckily I have a nutritionist appointment tomorrow where we can discuss this and come up with ways to improve it.
But for now I have a new motivation. I want to prove that I do deserve to recover outpatient. That means it is still okay (and compeltely reasonable) to have fear of my portions, fear foods, or eating all of those darn bagels that haunt me in my sleep haha. What is not okay is letting those fears dictate my actions and giving myself excuses to act out on behaviors. Telling myself that doing a yogurt instead of my chocolate milk that is mandated is okay. They wouldn't let me do it inpatient, so I don't get to do it now either. I have to be my own staff person, or I will be sitting in inpatient having a staff person all to myself.
So screw ED and his lies. They can keep coming and I know they will, but they will not dictate my actions. I refuse to let him drive me back to inpatient treatment yet again. No, not this time. This time I am keeping my freedom and recovering outpatient. How am I gonna do this? By letting his fears leave just as quickly as they come by facing them head on. If he screams to not finish my portions, I will finish them. To leave behind or measure my bagel, I will grab one spontaneously and eat the whole thing. To choose a safer meal even if it's not what I want, I will eat what I crave. And you know what it may not be pretty, at times I may fall, but I am gonna pick myself back up at the next opportunity. Outpatient recovery is mine, but only if I earn it. And that process starts now.