moving forward hurts sometimes

Hey friends! I’m sorry that it’s been so long since my last post. These past few weeks I have very much been on the struggle bus. I’ve had a lot of slips and kind of let myself simmer—so please let me bring you all up to speed.  

About four weeks ago, I told my mom that I’m taking a break from talking to her and my dad for a while. This is something that I’ve been mulling over for a while, and after writing a poem about both my parents the week before that brought me to some new realizations, I decided that it was the best option for me.  

I’m not going to go super into how this came to happen, as I know a lot of my readers also know my parents. What I will say, though, is that I feel that they were hindering me in my recovery, as my dad has told me multiple times that I was just ‘doing’ my eating disorder, and my mom has enabled this, basically told me to not care about what he thinks and told me to excuse it. Both Therapist Holly and Therapist Ryan have told me that I seem to meet the criteria for a diagnosis of PTSD, and I’ve been sifting through a lot of trauma processing from my upbringing—processing that I don’t think my parents are willing to acknowledge or help me with.  

In all of that, I decided that continuing my relationship with them, at least for the time being, would be hurting me and my recovery.  

This was and still is an incredibly difficult decision for me. It’s hard to accept that they don’t, and may never, be willing or able to give me what I want and need on this journey to healing. The whole thing has been hitting me incredibly hard, especially as I’ve had a lot of ‘adult-ing’ to do these past couple weeks in preparing for graduation, looking for a job, and looking for an apartment for next year. Realizing that calling my parents for help and advice in these new and unfamiliar experiences is not an option has been really hard. 

I’ve realized that since I’ve stopped talking to them, I’ve wanted their approval even more. This pushed me to stop eating for a couple weeks and relapse with some burning and cutting behaviors. Last week, though, I had an appointment with my psychiatrist that I’ve been thinking about, and it has really helped push me into finding my way back to the recovery mindset.  

She said that I could think of it as ‘divorcing’ my parents. As she explained it, a lot of people seem to think a successful divorce is one in which you think about the person you divorced and burn with hate. This isn’t a successful divorce, though. A successful divorce, she explained, is one in which you can think about them and feel nothing—you don’t worry about what they think or what they’re doing anymore, and you’ve let go of the anger and hurt and sadness you’ve held toward them.  

I’ve realized that although I’ve stopped talking to them, I’ve stayed fixated on what they think of me and what they’d approve of. I realized that I need to stop fixating on my weight, even if they have encouraged me to, and that I need to decide for myself that I need to recover and be healthy. Even if that means they don’t approve or support me.  

Of course this is a lot easier said than done. Eating has been insanely hard. Not throwing up has been insanely hard. But instead of being apathetic toward or feeding into my eating disorder, I’m deciding to fight it. I’m doing my best. And although there’s a lot to process in all of this, and although this has been a massive bump in the road for my recovery, I think it is something that needs to be addressed and dealt with if I am going to be successful. 

Living kind of hurts right now. Okay, it really hurts right now. But I think that maybe the only way out is through. I still believe that I made the right decision for me, even though that decision has been so incredibly painful.  

I don’t want to live a life where I let my parents control my every move. I don’t want to live with the fear that every time I take a bite my parents are going to hate me more. I don’t want to live with the fear that I won’t ever be loved until I’m skinny and dead. These ideas, these beliefs, are not serving me. They’re serving my disorder, and I don’t want to, I can’t, live like this anymore. And this is painful. This pain isn’t going to kill me, though, while the pain of an eating disorder not recovered from will.  

I’ve got shit to do, and I can’t let this stop me. I’ve got a future to look forward to, so I guess I go forward, even though it hurts.  

All my love,  

Allie