When Silence isn't Golden

Sorry I haven’t been around much lately guys. Honestly…I hit a rough patch. I’m not really sure when it started…but my old behaviors began creeping back in. It could have been the stress of exams, this hopelessness and fear I feel about my future, the realization I am graduating and that means losing my N (more on this in a later post). I am really not sure. All I know is I slowly started slipping, the scale started becoming my only focus, and then I woke up with food poisoning today. Pretty much the perfect storm for a lapse. And it did happen. I did cut out one of my snacks today. For some reason it seemed the way to cope…but I’m sitting here not feeling any better.

What am I trying to cope with. Right now? The silence. I feel so alone in life right now. I don’t know why. I spent time with my mom this weekend, I am on a campus surrounded by people, and I have people who text me during the day. But at the end of the day, or in those moments in the day where there is nothing but work I am doing…I feel alone. And it scares me.

It’s in these moments grief comes back and hits hard. These moments were the times I would call my dad. I remember I used to find any tiny excuse to call him. I always felt I had to have a reason to call him…even though I really just called to hear his voice. These past few days I have been hit hard with the loss again. The fact that I have these silent moments and he isn’t there to fill them. I close my eyes and can see him. I can feel his arms around me. And yet…he isn’t here. I just feel this emptiness. This longing. And I can’t satisfy it. I just want him back and nothing I can do can make that happen…so I have been focusing on my weight instead. Something I feel I have more control over. Something I can force to go my way. But at the end of the day, in the silence, I still feel this loss.

I honestly don’t know what to do. I have never felt this amount of grief and pain and ache. I know how I can make it right…I can get my dad to come back to earth. Problem is…I’m not God. I can’t make that happen and its not in God’s Will for it to happen. I know His Will is good. That His way is greater than mine…but right now..in the silence…I want my way to be right. I want it to be the way.  I want my dad so this pain can go away. I just want this pain to stop…and it won’t. It won’t ntil he is back.

I have escaped emotions using ED for my whole life, but grief. This insurmountable grief. ED isn’t even big enough to overcome it. Even restricting today I was consumed with thoughts of my dad. Memories of my dad. The love for my dad. And the pain that he is not here. Part of me likes the pain because it means I’m not moving on. But the other part…is just drained by it. Consumed by it.

And a lot of it I know comes from realizing I will have lots of goodbyes coming when I graduate. I am tired of having to say goodbye. I want time to stop moving. I want things to just stand still. I feel like I jumped on this train called life and its chugging down the track at a rapid pace and I’m not ready. I don’t know where its taking me and I feel like its plowing down the things I care about along the way without stopping to let me catch my breath.

I’m also scared I am going to lose my stepfamily. I feel like the longer my dad is gone the less they wonder about me. The less contact we have. And the more silence creeps in. This scares me. I saw my mom’s family fall apart when my aunt died. I saw my dad’s family distance when his parents died. And I’m terrified me, my stepmom, and stepsiblings will distance now that my dad is gone. I just can’t lose any more people. I just can’t.

I think it’s strange that in the midst of all this loss my mind goes to loss for the answer. Just lose weight and everything will be better is what my mind says. It blames all of this horridness on my weight being higher than its been in a while. I wish it were that simple. I wish ED was right about this one. I wish I could just lose to a certain weight and everything be okay. I wish if my weight was stable it would mean my life is stable…but that’s just not reality. I’ve lost, I’ve gained, I’ve maintained and this pain has been there every step of the way. My dad hasn’t come back. My future hasn’t been made clear. All that’s happened is I have felt more lost and confused and scared. All emotions I don’t cope well with. I can usually run from them…but after not facing them for so many years…they are too big to outrun. So I guess I will have to face them…I just don’t know how. 

Sorry this isn't cheerful. That there isn't some happy ending I have right now. But right now..I'm trying to be okay with not being okay.