Releasing the Past

Tonight….tonight has been the night I have been waiting, longing, praying for. The night when something hits me…some desire that can push me through the good, bad, and in between. Something that can give me a reason to recover…a reason to fight….something I can cling on to. Tonight…that came in speaking to my brother.
P.S.--I hope to evenutally upload some childhood photos in here

You see my brother read my blog and asked him what he thought and this is what he said in a simple text (funny how texts are saving my life): ..."Seeing you punish yourself hurts me far more than dad ever did." It was in the moment, as tears began to well up in my eyes, that I realized my ED affects more than just me. Here I have been trying to punish myself enough to undo my past. Trying to hurt myself enough to somehow end the pain my brother endured in our childhood. Trying somehow to take the pain away through my own self-inflicted torture. And the whole time….I’ve been breaking my bubba’s heart.

I mean I should have known I was affecting other people, but I have been so focused on my pain I have looked away from others. I mean sure I know it hurts my mom and my dad, but for some reason that isn’t enough. That doesn’t break my heart…it’s sad but true. But to know I am hurting my brother…that breaks my heart to pieces.

And it’s not me that’s hurting my brother…it’s my ED. This thing I have clung to try and end my brother’s suffering….it is causing him to suffer even now that he has escaped my father. In that moment, with that realization, I wanted nothing else but to squash my ED. Did the fear of weight gain immediately spark up? Yes. But it didn’t matter as much as not hurting my brother.

I kept thinking about this and then (with the help of a dear friend to guide me too) I realized every time I use my ED I am hurting my brother. I am basically sending my father to his room. When I restrict my intake for any reason, I am staring those scared kids, clinging onto each other praying the fights would end….I am staring them square in the face and calling them worthless and that they don’t deserve joy or even food.

I have heard of this imagery before in having your own inner child…but honestly I am at a point that the little girl me doesn’t matter. That’s sad, but it’s where I am. But put my brother there…put us together inside of me and I want to fight to protect him…and she (me) comes along with that. So I want to protect them both. I want them to feel love, joy, peace. Everything missing due to the chaos and alcohol…I want them to experience it. I want them to feel the freedom and joys of childhood. The warmth of a loving embrace. The gold start given by parents who are proud. And you know what…I can.

Sure…I can’t go back to my past and change it, but those two kids…they survived.  They survived their tormented childhood and they grew up into me and my brother. And I can fight for us. I can fight to experience that joy for myself so it can bring joy to my brother. I can fight for freedom so me and my brother can live in freedom from our past. I can fight for the peace I never felt as a kid. I can fight to not pain my brother or myself anymore. I can fight to end the nightmare of our childhood that haunts me.

How? I do my meal plan. I fight for recovery. I fight off the demon of ED who continues the pain and the torment of the childhood I deserve to leave in the past. I can choose on the days I am scared of weight gain, or the days I just want to give up…I can choose to fight for those kids who never had anyone fight for them. I can protect them from the wrath of ED. Because those two kids are here now in me and my brother and every time I use my ED it hurts us both…it lets the past come to the present….it has the pain of our childhood happen all over again…and we don’t deserve it.

After surviving our childhood me and my brother deserve joy and peace and happiness. We deserve to believe in ourselves, to smile at and love ourselves, to feel all the good feelings we didn’t get as kids. And I hold myself (and him since this hurts him too) back from that. And I freaking don’t deserve it. It’s time to end the pain and suffering of my past and to write the wrong by writing a new beginning. It’s time to leave ED in the past with the torment and move on to freedom and joy. It’s time to heal from my childhood and let it go.

And God spoke to me through this too. He spoke to my heart and said, “Let me take it away. Stop trying to punish the pain of your childhood away. Punishment brought your childhood pain, forgiveness will set it free. Forgive yourself and your father and feel freedom. Release the pain to Me….My yolk is easy and I can bear it. Cry it out My daughter….let the pain go and be free. Let me take this pain from you….so you don’t have to punish yourself or cling to the past. So you can be free to take hold of the future.”

So this night…right now…I am vowing to fight for recovery. Not necessarily for me, but for me and my brother. For those kids who didn’t get the love they deserved. I am fighting to end the past and the pain it brought. I am release the past and cling on to the future. In the past is pain, in the present is healing, and in the future….well…I think there may be freedom.