no fear

you know, sometimes it frightens me how easy this is.  how i can go a full day without food.  how i can go a week on apples and sugar free red bull.  how, if there were no other people in my life, i would never eat out.  it feels natural, smooth, like it's the way its always been and the way it always will be.  i've been doing this for almost two decades and it still hits me sometimes.  i really wonder if this is the way i was meant to be.  i've had a lot of shit in my life and it's so easy to blame my ED on that, but even if i didn't i think i would still be this way.  funny.

i'm not one of those people that whines about how miserable they are and the hell they're in and how they would give anything to recover.  between you and me, that's bullshit.  i know, because i know the difference between wanting to recover and wanting to stay right where you are.  it takes real self acceptance to say, i like this, i like the way i am, i know it's not normal and i know it's not healthy and i'm ok with that.  people who want to recover, who really really really want to recover, do.  they bust their ass and do whatever it takes to get well, they don't play games/hide food/tell lies/purge secretly/fast for days yet say they want to recover.  they tell everyone so they can be help accountable.  they sit out in the main room after eating so they can be watched.  they do as they're told.

i believe that people who remain sick with an ED do so because some part of them, unconsciously perhaps, likes it.  A person does not continue a negative behavoir unless they get some sort of benefit out of it, and that benefit outweights the negative consequences.

i'm an alcoholic.  my drinking brought plenty of negative consequences: humiliation, no money, threat of legal action, possibility of hurting someone, and threat to my health.  but it also relaxed me, let me escape, loosened me up for social events and made me feel good, at least for a little while.  for a real long time, the positive benefits outweighed the negative consequences for me, even though an outsider would probably disagree.  i said over and over again how bad my drinking was and how it was ruining my life, and i kept right on drinking.  it was only when the scale switched to the negative, when my life was really crumbling around me, that i reevaluated my position.  i decided that the brief escapes were not worth it, and i got my ass to AA.

it's about choice and being honest with yourself.  with respect to my ED, i don't want to be different.  i'm ok with this.  maybe that's fucked up, but it's ok with me.  the benefits outweigh the negatives.