The reality. My mind wants to avoid emotions and thus is
choosing to focus on something as silly as carrots. The reality is that is how
deep in this ED I am. That I can even be so freaked out and distracted by
carrots that I drop to my knees in the kitchen and cry out to God to help me.
Let’s just say that was a harsh dose of reality. I have fallen deeper into this
ED than I want to admit….and I am only going to get out with God. I am afraid
of fruits and veggies. The very things my parents told me to finish I am afraid
of.
Numbers still swirl in my mind and I am impatient in wanting
them to go away. I want it all to go away. I want my mind to be silenced. But
recovery…it’s a process. So I have to bear the seemingly unbearable fear and
yelling in my mind and push through and do the right thing. But the fears and
the yelling in my mind have been there so I can avoid emotions…so having to
continue to face the fear instead of letting the yelling stop me from whatever “mistake”
ED convinces me I am about to make…well that’s just against my nature…and it’s
exactly what I need to do. And things aren’t going to get better that instant…maybe
not even that week…but I have to keep pushing through. This is the part of
recovery that sucks.
Want to know what else sucks. This has NOTHING to do with
carrots. See…the carrots didn’t bother me till I realized I screwed up my meal
timing again and thus felt like a let down to my nutritionist yet again. And
this time I actually wanted to make her proud because she is going through a
lot right now. But ED creeped in and I felt like I failed (something I don’t
like feeling at all). While trying to cope with that guilt and shame I get a
text from my therapist telling me she thinks I am too severe on an ED client
for her to see because she isn’t specialized. So there we go…my whole team…I
feel I have let them all down, let myself down, screwed up the recovery summer
I set out to have. That brings grief, fear, guilt, shame, sadness. So many
emotions that are just too overwhelming for me to feel…so what does my brain do?
It takes it out on carrots. 
It has me stand by the food scale with my cup of carrots for
a good 15 minutes pacing back and forth deciding whether or not to weigh the
dang things. “Do it Jess…you failed anyway” it says as I approach the food
scale, but then reason steps in “Come on Jess it’s just carrots you CAN do
this. Cry out to the Lord to help you.” I walk away from the food scale. “You
will overeat if you don’t weigh them.” Back to the food scale. “You deserve to
be free.” Away from the food scale. This is absolute insanity and I ended up
not weighing the carrots. And now I am sitting here having to feel all these
feelings and let the tears flow.
It sucks to feel disordered. It sucks to feel not good
enough. It sucks to feel like the sickest in the room even if ED tells you that’s
a good thing. Because when you are sitting there freaking out about carrots…you
realize being sick just means you are trapped in your own prison. That being
the sickest just means you are more enslaved…it just means you have a farther
and harder time to get out….it means you, even moreso than others, need to
become dependent on someone else to tell you how and what to eat.
I know, I know…it’s not my fault how sick I am. I didn’t
choose to have anorexia…I didn’t choose to have this misery..but I am stuck in
it. And I keep getting in my own way of getting out. But I guess…I guess
tonight I took one more step towards the door…because I didn’t weigh the
carrots and am feeling emotion. I guess that’s a positive…but still…I sit here…sad
and scared at how stuck I am.
I want recovery. I want a carrot to be a carrot. Food to be
food. I want to be free, to be normal, to be the case that got better instead
of the case that needs more help. Heck….I want to be a person not a case. I
want to feel emotions and be vulnerable…because it’s a heck of a lot better
than being afraid of carrots. And you know what…I need to rely on others and on
God to do that. Because I am so stuck in this dungeon, in this darkness…that I
can’t see the door. But for my friends, family, and God who is standing outside
the prison begging me to crawl out….they see the door…and I need them to guide
me to it. It sucks to not be independent….but again…depending on others is a
heck of a lot better than being afraid of carrots. 
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