It’s been 9 months of recovery. It’s been difficult but I’ve managed. I’ve kept my eyes on the prize. Health. That’s all I wanted. When I saw health, my prize that I’m working so hard towards, I didn’t see a fat frowny faced girl but a lean and fit girl with glowing skin and a light in her eyes. When I look in the mirror I see a fat frowny faced girl and lately I just want to cut myself off from the world so I can cry and exercise and restrict and count until the numbers are back into my comfort zone. Until my jeans fit and arms don’t do the doubley wave. When that happens everything will be okay.
My moms birthday was Wednesday. I stayed after and talked with her. That was a mistake. I told her about my eating disorder. It started at 20 and I will be 28 in just a few weeks. She was sad for me but at the end of the day she thinks that I am so smart and I have the will to get through anything. Thanks for the support. She doesn’t seem to think it’s real, like it’s just a phase.
I asked her about when she used to through up. She said she couldn’t even guess at how long she did it. She said that she stopped when she was in a good relationship. 18 years she’s been with him. “Was it hard? Were you always trying to stop? Did you promise yourself every time it was the last time?” Questions out of curiosity and frustration. How can she just not remember? How can she act like it was some arbitrary thing she did and doesn’t do anymore. She finally said that she knows were I’m going through. She’s full of shit.
My cousins wedding last month threw a chink in my recovery armor and now my brain is melting and my eyes are leaking. I broke down and bought a scale today. I had to know. And now I know. 168 pounds. I’ve gained over 30 pounds. How am I going to lose all this?! This is why I never gave “recovery” any real effort! My worst fears have come true.
All I can think about is how I’m gonna lose this. It’s been on my mind since the wedding in July. I bought a scale because I have to do something about this. I have to know where my body is at. I’ve been racking my brain but I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to lose weight for my body anymore. I think I’ve been eating somewhere between 1500-1800 calories, so eating less only means starvation. So…eat more? This is weird.
I’m so confused. I don’t want to be fat. I don’t want to have an active eating disorder. I need to do something but I don’t know what. If I keep on going the way I have…how much bigger will I get? I’m scared. I can’t get any bigger. Any bigger and I will be shopping in the plus sized section. I want to hide from the world and exercise and restrict until I’m not fat anymore.
ED was a different kind of misery and I refuse to go back, especially after 9 months and 40 pounds of effort I put into this. I don’t know how exactly I’m going to do it, but damnit I will lose this weight and I will be healthy.
All Over the Place 
I honestly believe that when you restore a healthy balance with food, your body will reward you by settling at a healthy weight (not that this guarantees you won’t FEEL fat, just that you won’t BE fat). And 1500-1800 calories is nowhere near enough for a grown woman to be living on.
Sorry your mom is so flippant about it. My mother got to 275 pounds because she “really likes food” and thinks describing myself as eating disordered is “a little extreme.” I think having a high weight nearly double my low weight is *a little extreme,* mummy dearest…
Just don’t give up. No quitting. Keep making the best choices you can and keep reinforcing your choices with research and facts about ED and recovery. Also, flip the bird at your mom behind her back one in a while. It’s cathartic. ❤
I don’t know what else to do but to keep going but I can’t help but like I’m going the wrong direction. I feel like I don’t know which way is up anymore.
…but the doubley wave will enable us to fly one day, I’m sure of it!!
Yeah Mum thought it was a phase too. And that it just goes away like magic. Funny enough, Mum used to starve, but she has the exact same mindset as your Mom. She doesn’t think there was anything wrong with eating one cracker and one tiny piece of cheese per day for three years, and she seems to have had no problem eating normally again when she got married. Something with that generation maybe?
Throw out the scale. It means nothing. I haven’t weighed myself in like… 3 years and now honestly not only do I not want to know, I DON’T CARE.
Dieting without slipping back into bad habits is hard. I don’t think we can do anything except the basics–try to not eat junk, and keep active. Tempest has it right–at some point when you achieve a healthy balance, your body will settle at the weight that is healthiest for your body. It will tell you when you’re hungry and when you’re full, and you’ll lose the need or desire to binge (seriously it dawned on me the other day that I haven’t gone into binge-mode in a loooooooooong ass time and I kind of couldn’t believe it) and hopefully you’ll be ok with your body.
Remember, when in doubt, touch your boobs. They are glorious.
Hang in there, love. “Up” is relative.