Unfair

I feel somewhat bitter...although i know this is something that I have no control over it pains me to know that my ex-boyfriend has moved on and is in a new relationship. I guess it somewhat hurts that he couldn't commit to being in a relationship with me yet hes in one now but it upsets me more at the fact that I was the good one and i ended up the unhappy one. He was the asshole yet life seems to work out in his favour. I realize that there is no use in allowing this to consume me as its a natural part of life but sometimes i makes me wonder what karma really means...but in the end just because he has a girlfriend doesn't mean hes happy. Maybe hes trying to compensate his unhappiness by consuming himself in a relationship. Despite these feelings I need to realize that there is more to life beyond relationships...i'm on a mission to fix me.

Keep on Believing?

I haven't been posting positive affirmations because quite frankly they aren't working nor is this visualization process as I can't remember what it is I want every time I have a negative thought or act inconsistently with my visualization of normalcy. I feel like my thoughts are so embedded that they are irreversible and that I'm going to be stuck this way forever. On the other hand I don't feel that I am giving myself the benefit of the doubt but its hard to know how to go about this whole process. I have no sense or direction or idea of what it entails to beat this disease. I feel lost and I guess I expect all these behaviours to change overnight and am giving it a time line when maybe I shouldn't be so hard on myself. I'm hoping this eating disorders support group will help and maybe next week during check in I will bring up my lack of understanding what this journey entails and how it is become a self-fulfilling prophecy that I am destined for failure. In the meantime I really have to try and keep positive and keep myself busy and surrounded by people. Its just I feel ok now but in five minutes I have to go change into clothes and thats when I get depressed and an sense of faith that I had has been quickly forgotten.

Some good news though, my counselor at university is not going to be able to counsel me during the summer as she is leaving, but she has asked her supervisor to continue counseling with me and for that I am so grateful because I really can't do this alone and I need the proper direction.

Some so so news, I am going to Cuba in June and although that should be really exciting I am really nervous about having to wear a bathing suit...

Getting Frustrated

Maybe my expectations were too high for recovery and I expected to instantaneously decide to give up binging and wake up tomorrow morning and just stop having urges to do so. I have also been easily giving in to urges and feel absolutely terrible and defeated after wards. I feel like I'm losing grip on this recovery process and I don't know how to stay motivated. The more I put on my clothes the more depressed I become when I realize that they are too tight and they were not just two months ago.

On Tuesday I also attended my first support group. Although I didn't speak during it, listening to the stories of others didn't make me feel like such an alien knowing that they are other people who do the same, think the same and still have to function in society like me. But also at the same time it made me nervous as I thought to myself a lot of these girls have been struggling a long time even with therapy and I suppose I have been too idealistic in what this all will entail. Dealing with these emotions has just been difficult as I can't seem to balance my desire for recovery with my thoughts of my body. Its letting go of all the control that I have had that scares me.

Today's Positive Affirmation

"I am in tune with my own body"

Being in tune with my own body means that I only listen to external cues of physical hunger. I no longer deal with my emotional problems to combat sadness of depression. I eat when I am hunger, when I am not I don't eat...

My newest technique for combating this and the obsessive thoughts over food is whenever it comes up in my mind I have a particular thing that i switch into my mind to concentrate on. I chose photography because it is a hobby that I really want to get back into this summer and now with so much more time on my hands since I know longer am to be obsessive over my thoughts of food and weight I will have time to do so. So every time I think of food, I just opt to change my concentration over to photography. I believe that if I practice this enough the obsessive thoughts will begin to disappear.

Update from last night. So at the dessert place I was trying to choose a dessert and I actually for once chose the one I wanted over the one that was healthier. It was a mint chocolate chip sundae..mmmm... and I actually was satisfied because it was what I wanted rather than the safer vanilla ice cream with strawberries.

On another great note I think me and my friend are going to the travel agency today to get information on our trip to Cuba that we want to take in June. Normally this would send me into a panic attack as all the components of a vacation is a nightmare to a person with an eating disorder...restaurant food, bathing suits, possibly no time to work out, little opportunity for isolation. I think this is the perfect thing for me...It would be a week to escape all my eating disorder rituals as  I won't engage in them in front of people....I am honestly really excited for this....

anyways off to yoga now...mands out!

Loosing Focus...

Only a week ago had I had such a clear vision of what this new life of normalcy and release from the preoccupation with my weight was and now that has seemed to fizzle away. I can feel my feelings creeping back and the preoccupation with food and feeling fat present once again. This upsets me as only a week ago was I so optimistic about this whole journey and I felt hope, hope that I could achieve all these things and feel normal once again. But now I feel like again I'm stuck in a cycle that I don't know how to get myself out of.

I read this book called "Wasted' about the experience that Maryna Hornbacher has with eating disorders. At the end of the book she makes quite a valid point and I highly recommend anyone that has experienced eating disorders read this book. Some people have claimed that it could be a trigger for some people and I see how it could in particular ways. She brings up a lot of the emotions and realities that surrounding having an eating disorder and it could perpetuate those feelings in suffers who enjoy experiencing those same emotions. Now back to the point that she made that struck a chord with me...

She said that no therapy, no treatment, no book etc is useful in recovery if you aren't willing to recover. The only person that can make that change is you and you alone. Nothing else can be effective or is effective without you. I strongly believe this and sometimes I feel like I rely on external sources too often to tell me how to go about this process that I don't trust my on self. I also feel like sometimes I don't know how or maybe even want to give this up.

I guess in some senses an eating disorder provides an explanation for many things. Its an explanation for why I'm unhappy, or why I don't want to experience new things or even why I lost my marbles on someone the other day. All I have to say is I don't have any other explanation for my actions other than I am suffering with an eating disorder and it alters my judgment. If I don't have an eating disorder anymore than if I were to act in similar ways only I would be accountable for it, unless I developed some other sort of mental disorder.

When you think of this it kinda leads you into thinking about the origins of one's eating disorder and what has perpetuated it through all these years. What started it for me? Did I just develop one because I needed something to excuse me from my unhappiness, or negative behaviour. Maybe I felt eating disorders were the easiest excuse. Or maybe it was unconscious and I was biologically inclined to develop one.

In all realness we spend so much time looking into the past and the whos, whats, wheres and whys. None of that will help me now. Knowing why I developed this disease will not help me get past it. Ye sure, maybe I'll be more enlightened but still suffering nonetheless. I know I need to keep up with the visualizations but its hard to consciously remember these things, especially when I spend so much energy criticizing myself. Like now for instance, here I am already defeated after a couple days of backwards thinking. Its probably this feeling of defeat that has kept me from overcoming small setbacks in the past. I've once again ignored all the progress that I have made. So because this time I am serious about this journey as I've pledged on this blog that I will make the effort everyday to make my life an enjoyable one, I will continue fighting.

How will I do this you ask? Well now that you mention it I am in fact going for dessert tonight with some friends and it is expected from them that I actually order dessert. I've been nervous all day and night for what I am going to encounter or whether or not I will be able go through with this and actually order dessert...No Wait!Stop!Rewind! Ok with today's positive affirmation in mind...I am a normal eater therefore I will eat dessert tonight, enjoy it and not think twice of any consequences.

Also on a side note..tomorrow is my first group therapy session at Sheena's Place and I'm super nervous yet quite excited that I will get to be around people who are dealing with the same issues as me...

Ok time for dessert now...Mands out!

Today's Positive Affirmation

"I am a normal eater"

I felt the need to keep reinforcing this notion of normal or intuitive eating as lately I have been noticing how during the day I am more easily able to tap into my hunger levels but still at night am emotionally eating. For instance last night I had a stomach ache but I still continued to eat.

I realize that this is a journey and that it won't happen overnight but this morning I felt like I was regenerating back to diet mentality and became worried about the fact that tonight I'm going our for dessert and that I have functions coming up. All this eating out lead me to worry about weight gain, and that I began to revert to the dieting mentality of figuring out how to plan food in order to prepare for all these outings etc.

So today's affirmation is to reiterate that this thinking is now longer how I think because now I am a normal eater and I don't worry about food anymore.

Today's Positive Affirmation

"When I believe in myself, so do others"

I really don't think I give myself credit for all the amazing things that I am doing for myself. It takes a lot of courage to admit that I have a problem and seek help. My determination is a characteristic to admire and I think a lot of people admire me for it and support me through all that I am going through. I need to believe in myself for others to though and I need to trust that whatever I am doing is the right thing.

I also believe that I put to much emphasis on relationships and the fact that I am lacking in that department recently. My ex-boyfriend has moved on and because I haven't I feel like somewhat of a loser or failure because I lost the personal competition that I started between us on who could move on quicker. What I have yet to truly realize is that competition that I started in no way determines that I am a loser just because I am not in a relationship. There is no evidence that whatever relationship he is involved in is better or considered a success but it could quite possibly be a rebound. Regardless my ex-boyfriend is really the equivalent of major douche so I mean a relationship shouldn't be the only determining factor in whose moved on to bigger and better things. Also I need to let go of my past and not address the lives that the both of us have created in comparison to one another.

I need to see myself for who I am and project that to other people because then only good things can come my way...