Time flies
04 May 2011 Leave a Comment
Hey Friends,
With RECOVERY comes LIFE, and let me tell you–LIFE gets busy! Just a minute ago I glanced over at my calendar thinking, “Hmm… May 4th…”, then BAM! suddenly I nearly shrieked, “It’s May FOURTH?!?!?! How did I almost miss this??!!” Today, May 4th, marks the TWO YEAR anniversary of the day I was discharged from my last residential treatment stay. What has happened? Some days it feels like two light years have passed, not just two calendar years. It all seems surreal, hard to comprehend. Like it was all just a bad, bad dream and now I am awake. Was that really me? Did all of that actually happen? The memories from those dark days only come in flashes and snippets. They can feel so incredibly haunting. I am grateful on some level they vanish as quick as they appear. Yet, these same memories, they are some of my best teachers. They remind me of that awful place that I choose to not revisit, that wounded person I don’t want to showcase. Although two years has brought me countless blessings, it has also brought its fair share of hurts and suckiness. The blessings and the suckiness, that IS LIFE. It downright sucks at times, but more often its phenomenally amazing. Have the past two years been perfect and smooth? Absolutely not. Yet, somehow, despite all of the lies the eating disorder ‘fed’ me, I am alive, I am still standing, and I remain firmly planted on solid ground. I have so much to live for. I have so much to be grateful for. This is where I choose to stay. THIS is my destiny. I AM SUPERWOMAN.
goals 2011
17 Dec 2010 Leave a Comment
Good morning to you!
It’s that wonderful time of year when many around me are making weight loss, exercise, etc goals for the new year, but to avoid such pitfalls I have decided to make a more unique set of goals with recovery, health, wellness, and peace of mind being priority. This reminds me of a very striking quote I came across awhile back when I was reading Women, Food, and God. "Even a wildly successful diet is a colossal failure because inside the new body is the same sinking heart." –Geneen Roth How true this is! I could change my outside all I want, but the reality is that it changes nothing on the inside. So instead I am devoting this year to doing more work on this "inside job". Here are my goals.
1. I plan on taking my recovery and healing journey to the next level and find a new level of inner awareness, all while being gentle with myself along the way.
2. I plan to continue to improve my quality of life and work on making this consistent by proactively targeting historically troublesome times or danger zones to avoid mini-meltdowns that I have been feeling an increase in lately.
3. I plan to deepen my trust in myself, and strive for an even greater level of inner peace that I know and believe that I deserve.
4. I plan to banish judgement from my life and use the compassion I can so honestly, easily, and freely dish out to others, and dish it out to myself.
5. During this time I pray for patience and perseverance so that I may work wholeheartedly toward these goals one day at a time.
Have a Happy Holiday Season and a FABULOUS day!
Peace and Hugs,
Rhonda
It’s So Hard To Say Goodbye To Yesterday
19 Dec 2009 Leave a Comment
This week was a challenge for me, but not necessarily in a negative way. This week marked the end of an era for me. It was my final two appointments at my treatment center. I have been with this particular agency for years and this is where the brunt of my healing journey took place. This is where I found myself. These people (staff and clients) have seen me through the awful and the amazing and have never left my side.
The goodbyes were bittersweet (mostly sweet) and there were moments during the days preceding where I vowed to avoid going, and then there were moments where I swore I would schedule “just one more appointment” to try to hang on to the past. Sometimes thinking about my former self and all that has unfolded I feel like that was all surreal, sometimes I feel ashamed for the things that I have done (only for a moment or two–it’s no longer all-consuming), and most days I feel incredibly proud of where I have been and how far I have come. I will not forget the experiences of the past and my former self, but today I realize that I am so much more than my past. My past does not define me!
Anyway, tonight my deepest love and appreciation goes out to each and every one of these AMAZING individuals for all they have invested in me and my process. I literally owe them all what money can not ever repay. I once was dirt poor, but now because of them (let’s not forget I worked hard too!) I am one of the richest people on earth. I am adding a reading that has been helpful to me in times of transition–especially when these transitions involve people. I challenge you to think about the people in your life and how they fit into your life. Are they with you for a reason, a season, or a lifetime? (Caution: people don’t always fall into the category that we hope or expect.)…
A Reason, A Season, A Lifetime
People come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. When you figure out which it is, you know exactly what to do.
When someone is in your life for a REASON, it is usually to meet a need you have expressed outwardly or inwardly. They have come to assist you through a difficulty, to provide you with guidance and support, to aid you physically, emotionally, or spiritually. They may seem like a godsend, and they are. They are there for the reason you need them to be. Then, without any wrong -doing on your part or at an inconvenient time, this person will say or do something to bring the relationship to an end. Sometimes they die. Sometimes they walk away. Sometimes they act up or out and force you to take a stand. What we must realize is that our need has been met, our desire fulfilled; their work is done. The prayer you sent up has been answered and it is now time to move on.
When people come into your life for a SEASON, it is because your turn has come to share, grow, or learn. They may bring you an experience of peace or make you laugh. They may teach you something you have never done. They usually give you an unbelievable amount of joy. Believe it! It is real! But only for a season.
LIFETIME relationships teach you lifetime lessons; those things you must build upon in order to have a solid emotional foundation. Your job is to accept the lesson, love the person/people (anyway); and put what you have learned to use in all other relationships and areas of your life. It is said that love is blind but friendship is clairvoyant.
Thoughts don’t always mean I must react
07 Dec 2009 Leave a Comment
Ok, so this is yet another example of how recovery is NOT perfect. Please don’t freak out (not that you would), but I gotta get this out in a healthy manner. Right now I am having that stupid urge to purge. I swear I am not going to act on it, but that creepy voice is there nonetheless. The question is what is going on? Honestly I think it’s a bunch of little things. This is traditionally a difficult time of year for me with holidays and such. I also believe that this is exacerbated by the fact that I am incredibly tired. It probably didn’t help that I took a short nap before dinner and for some reason I woke up super angry and irritated. This anger and irritation was trumped by the fact that I knew I had to eat dinner to finish out the day’s meal plan and damn it I just didn’t want to. I wasn’t hungry but I knew that it would get too late and I would be short too many exchanges if I didn’t eat at that point. So I did what I knew was the next right thing (even thought I didn’t want to) and then the thoughts crept in on me. I now feel even more angry and irritated AND that urge is there. Believe me when I say that I don’t get these thoughts/urges much anymore and that is probably why this feels so distressing to me. It’s not even that I am concerned that I will act on it, but that it is like a ghost haunting me and that is freakier than anything to me right now. It’s the ghost of superwoman32 past and I don’t want to see or even be reminded of her at this moment. I am no longer her AND she does not define who I am today. This is where “HALT” (acronym for hungry, angry, lonely, tired) comes in and I recognize that I am over tired and over full. I have been distracting with contacting others, listening to/searching for recovery music, and now typing for my book/recovery blog. I have this feel of urgency to get this yuck out of my head–it’s toxic waste and it has no place in my mind any more. In honoring my recognition of being over tired, over full, and angry I am going to listen to my body. I am going to stop this train wreck in it’s tracks by putting on some soothing music, reading my healing journal, and going to sleep for the night. I have all the hope in the world that tomorrow will be a new day and that I will be back to present day superwoman32 who is ROCKIN’ LIFE.
730 and counting
25 Nov 2009 Leave a Comment
This week I celebrated TWO YEARS of clean time. Can you even believe that?! As someone pointed out to me the other day that’s 730 days, all one day at a time. When I realized that I was amazed because to me 730 days is a lot of days! There were points where I never believed that I would ever see this day. I never believed I would stay clean and “settle” into a relatively balanced recovery place. In some ways when I look back I think, “Oh my, what a ride this has been. I‘m glad to be back on the ground again.” and then I have other days where I think, “Wait a second, was that me or was I watching someone else’s life play out in front of me?” When I have this second thought it’s more of a disbelief that I was ever even in such a horrible place considering where I am at now. My quality of life is so good–and I mean truly good and it’s in moments hard to remember what the horribleness was like, but then it doesn’t take more than a moment or two for the memory gates to open wide and then I fully (and at times, painfully) remember what those days were like and how I now choose to do everything that I can to not go back there again. For me, it’s about doing things differently these days. I am of course a deeply habitual creature, but I am constantly challenging myself to step outside the box and do something different. I’m not going to lie, it’s not at all easy by any means, but it is crucial to my existence to not fall in to patterns and ruts. When I go out to eat I try new foods or new restaurants. When I get dressed I try to make slightly different clothing combinations than my “usual” outfits of certain tops belonging with certain bottoms. When I drive to places I try to use slightly different routes. Those are just a couple examples, but it spreads to all areas of my life. Do I have recovery down to a science now? Ha. Absolutely not. Literally every day is a new, eye-opening experience in some way. My challenge to you is to try to do at least one thing different each day…
Tactfully Honest
12 Nov 2009 Leave a Comment
So I think somewhere on this blog I wrote that I will be “tactfully honest” in sharing with you. So, that being said, here it is. I have not posted in a couple of days and it is not because I have a lack of things to type about–AND those who know me know that I almost always have something to say. 
No, I did NOT lapse, or relapse, or anything like that so don’t worry. Those who know me know that nowadays I aim for balance and try to keep things “in check” and if I’m getting off-balance I take action ASAP to try to find my centered state of balance. Well, I have been absent from posting due to quite an ordeal of voluntary imbalance. What I did do was binge on work and restrict self-care. I promised not to talk numbers, but I am going to in this instance–I spent 40 hours awake and moving without sleep on purpose. I subjected myself to an intense extended schedule between 2 jobs, commuting, being a mom/partner, attending appointments, and TRIPLE booking myself between a mandatory work in-service, a recovery event, and a meeting with some dear friends from my past. I think I managed to get a case of “the busies” and failed to listen to my body and my needs. Did anything bad happen? Well, aside from the delirium and delusions one experiences when sleep deprived, and the “hangover” that you get after you finally crash and wake again I fared pretty well in the deal. However, I know recognize that this is something that I “should” not be doing–yes, I just “should” on myself. The reason that this is not good for me is that this is characteristic of old behaviors for me that were fully entangled among my eating disorder. This is where it could get slippery for me–and let’s just face it, it’s just plain old not a great idea to go full speed ahead for 40 hours without sleep. I did escape from this pattern rather unscathed but I now realize that I MUST be mindful and attempt to not even put myself in these slippery situations. My challenge for you is to try to identify those slippery places for you and to make a valiant attempt at finding balance in your day-to-day life…
“They” were right
08 Nov 2009 Leave a Comment
“Today my life is different.” Those who know me or read this blog often know that I say this often and I truly mean it. My thoughts AND my actions are different than they have ever been. Throughout the years of extensive treatments I have encountered many dietitians and they worked tirelessly on attempting to get me to follow a meal plan, abandon those feared and forbidden foods, and “just eat”. Anyone who knows anything about eating disorders knows that they are about SO much more than just food and eating. However, I finally figured out that ultimately I did need to eat, eat regularly, and eat the right portions. (Damn it, “they” were right!) I needed to eat to get my thinking and mood in check before I could truly begin the deeper healing that was needed to enter into recovery, and the only way I could start that process was by nourishing my body and brain (because without food I couldn’t even think straight). Weird thing now though is that I have been doing well for a good chunk of time, following my meal plan consistently, and now “they” are telling me to listen to my body and begin eating intuitively. YIKES! Essentially it feels as if they are telling me to throw this meal plan out the window. “YES!” Isn’t this what I have wanted all along? To be rid of the one thing that I fought against tooth and nail nearly the whole time? Strange thing is that now that I have adhered to this meal plan it has been a safety net of sorts. It is comfortable because I know what I need to eat and when I need to eat it. And now I find that I almost don’t want to leave my actual meal plan behind. I don’t quite know why this is so difficult because when I actually take a step back and evaluate I have actually already started doing this in my daily life, and NOT in an eating disordered sort of way either. I am moving away from the mechanical and prescriptive eating that I had to do to nourish my body initially. I no longer keep meal plan log sheets, and most days I only do a sort of quick rundown of tallies in my head just to make sure that I am on track and not missing anything before the day is over. My meal plan nowadays is less and less like a daily plan and more like a weekly plan. It is now ebbing and flowing slightly and some days I eat slightly fewer exchanges followed by a day or two of eating a few “extra” exchanges. It depends upon events that I have going on and what my body is really trying to tell me. However, I do at this point ALWAYS need to be mindful the fact of, “Is this what my body is truly telling me or is this what my mind is telling me?” For me there is a difference and I still need to be careful of what my motives are for eating or not eating at any given time. To this I say that all of my dietitians would be quite pleased. They would also be pleased to know that I literally have no remaining feared or forbidden foods, very few true dislikes, and no remaining foods that can send me into a binge. AND I often get excited about food and eating as I enjoy the deliciousness of the food along with getting caught up in good conversation. I like to dine out at restaurants of all kinds (something I once feared), and I order what I want to eat and not what my eating disorder wants. I am realizing now that I AM ready to move forward once again. I will consistently practice intuitive eating and I will continue to step back and evaluate my progress and fine tune things as needed. My challenge for you is to embrace your meal plan. Whether you are eating prescriptively, following a meal plan, or tapping into intuitive eating I say GO FOR IT and YOU CAN DO IT!!
Reminders in Rubbermaid
07 Nov 2009 Leave a Comment
After going through totes and totes of belongings of all sorts I have managed to locate and consolidate all of my remaining material from past treatments. All of these materials are what I call my reminders in rubbermaid. This tote is one of those flat totes that you can store under your bed and it is chalk full of all of these old reminders (some really painful and some that really make me smile) of my past. I have decided to save these old journals, worksheets, folders, etc for me to reference as I piece together what someday will most likely become an actual published book on my personal eating disorder recovery journey. I generally do not access this tote very often because sometimes it is really just too painful of a reminder to me of what things used to be like. However, some days I feel drawn to dig through this tote as it gives me strength, and courage to continue to move forward. Today is one of those days. I feel drawn to the reminders in rubbermaid as if they are calling my name, or there is some strange magnetic force drawing me to them. I go to the tote and I begin reading, looking, and observing. Today is one of those days in recovery where I am reflecting on my journey thus far and remembering pieces from my past. In the past this would have triggered me into all sorts of negative thoughts and behaviors, but today it is different. I now am able to sort of remove myself from my experiences and see them in a new light. I am grateful for everything that I have fought through, and for everyone that has been with me through this process. I look at my journey and I am able to see all of the hard work I have done and all of the progress that I have made. AND today I am able to say that I am proud of myself. I used to credit other people for helping me “get better”, and I still do give credit to others when credit is due, but I now take the majority of the credit for myself. Sure, I could not have ever gone through this process alone and been successful. I’ll be the first to admit that it took lots of support and encouragement (as well as poking, prodding, swift kicking, and at times violent shoving ). There were countless supporters (professionals, family, friends) who worked tirelessly and always held that hope for me when I couldn’t hold it for myself. In a sense that old saying, “It takes a village to raise a child” is so true. I was that “child” and everyone in my life was an important part of that “village”. I am incredibly grateful to have encountered so many wonderful people along my way, but in a sense I made it happen. One might ask, “Well, how can that be?” Well, yes the people showed up, but I allowed myself to be open to relationships and connections like never before. There is that level of vulnerability that sure scared the heck out of me when I first allowed myself to be open to such relationships, but it totally paid off because now I have the best relationships I have ever had in my entire life. As I built these connections and relationships with all of these different people I learned to do things differently than ever before. I began to be completely, totally, brutally honest with these people. AND let me tell you–honesty truly is the best policy–and boy, did I learn that one quickly. When I say brutal honesty I don’t mean anything negative at all. My approach was always meant to be respectful and tactful, but yet true to what was really going on inside of me. I learned to use my voice and ask for what I needed. It was incredibly difficult at times to do this, and sometimes I down right hated it but I’m glad I practiced doing because now I would say that I am pretty proficient at this particular skill. Anyway, I have been through my reminders in rubbermaid today and I have gotten what I needed from them for today–reflections on what once was, and gratefulness. It’s time to put the totes away and go forward yet again. Today I challenge you to move forward and to honestly do things differently…AND to use your voice and ask for what you need…
Flying Pizza
06 Nov 2009 Leave a Comment
Recovery is NOT perfect. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that it is because that is just not the truth whatsoever. I learned this little tidbit the hard way. A few years ago I went to a long-term residential eating disorder treatment facility where I stayed for the greater portion of a year. I left this facility in a great, recovery based place and I thought I had this eating disorder beat. I mean I was “perfect” at recovery, but apparently I wasn’t perfect at all at recovery because in a relatively short period of time things began to snowball on me once again and wound up in full-blown relapse–worst relapse of my life actually. What did I learn? Well, lots of things. I learned that I had to check myself back in to that same facility less than a year after my “graduation”, and that experience was both humiliating and humbling for me. So what went wrong? Well lots of things, but in reality I just started fudging my meal plan, using symptoms, isolating, and being completely dishonest with everyone in my life–especially myself. After my second, and final discharge from this particular treatment center (and thus far my final treatment all together) I was reminded of how I tried to be “perfect” at recovery, but that it is a process that happens to be not perfect at all. I have been consistently doing quite well for a good chunk of time and my mind is now relatively “free” of eating disordered thoughts and behaviors. This is tricky however because (this is where the imperfect stuff comes in) once in a blue moon I get these random, fleeting eating disordered thoughts. Nowadays it’s different though because I have a new set of skills, tools, and an amazing support system to use to combat those creepy, sneaky thoughts. So generally if and when I do get these old thoughts I am easily able to combat them on my own rather quickly or I can quickly and easily access someone who can somehow offer me support and help talk me through the situation. However, even I don’t ALWAYS win. Once in a while that sneaky creep of an eating disorder gets the best of me and I do something that surprises (and sometimes frightens me for a second or two). Here is the latest incident that happened so that you can have an idea of what it was and how I handled it. Wednesday night I went to my parent’s house to drop my daughter off so that I could go to my home group meeting. As I breezed through my dad so kindly paper-plated me a couple pieces of the pizza that they were having and sent me running. I got in my Jeep and headed down the road, took a bite of pizza, and then rolled down the window and tossed it all out the window as I was zooming down the dark county roads. Instantly I felt guilt, remorse, and shame. It was totally a habit of my former self, and an incredibly ingrained habit at that. So then instead of berating myself for my actions and behaviors I said, “Alright superwoman32, what is the next right thing?” I continued on to the next town, stopped immediately at a gas station and picked pizza AND added in the dessert that I was also in need of. I got back on the road, but this time I did not toss the food out the window–I ate ALL of it! The whole ordeal actually kind of shocked me, but I got through it quickly and easily. See, you really can teach an old dog new tricks! So this is where I shall end for today. Recovery is NOT perfect in any sense of the word, but it is a great place to be. I honestly wouldn’t wish to be anywhere but where I am today–and especially not in the “loving” arms of my all too familiar friend–my eating disorder. My challenge for you is to just allow yourself to be “perfectly imperfect”. I dare you to give it a whirl and see what happens…
