Mattering to Myself

There was a day, sitting in my psychiatrist’s office where I thought: there is no way that this darkness will ever lift, a day when I can have more than water in my fridge, a day when I can have a bag of cookies in my cupboard, or go out with friends, or wear a bathing suit in public or feel comfortable in the shirt I love, or fall in love… I never thought I could see ever getting away from my eating disorder… it was all consuming, it was consuming me and I was consuming food to get away from myself. I didn’t even see a flicker at the end of the tunnel let alone a light. No one could have convinced me that I would see a day with chocolate bars in a jar on my counter to be eaten whenever I wanted, butter in great swaths on my toast, chips and cookies when I felt like eating them, days of no exercise and loving it, days of lots of food and some days with little just because that is what my body needs, I never thought I would know a day where I would have a body I love and cherish and take care of in every way, and a sense of fearlessness and self love that are abundant in my life and have been for almost 20 years.

What happened between those years of fears and body hate and anger and secrecy and self loathing and these years that I live now full of life and love and energy and happiness was a delicious process of starting to know that I can never solve my pain by eating, or running, or starving myself. No diet, no weight loss, no quick fix could save me from the pain in my heart and somewhere food just stopped working to make my pain go away, in fact, it started to make it worse. A great therapist helped me get there and the journey was not a short stint on a cozy chair. It was years of looking inside and learning that food, while a great friend in distracting from my truth, was never going to lead me to the heart of what I needed to learn, what I needed to accept, and what I needed to let go of. Using food and my body as a distraction would not help me to lead the beautiful life I wanted and be the incredible, unique woman I am. I was the only person who could do that work. So I learned and I worked and I went out on the limbs in blind faith that people who helped me told me to walk out on and I finally got a voice, I finally started to know what I needed, what I felt and then, I started to say it to the people who I needed to talk to instead of eating my way into self hate and never having to confront my life. I started telling people what hurt me, I started saying no when I meant no instead of pleasing everyone except myself, I started seeing that in order to be the beautiful person I am and get what I need meant that there might be people who were hurt or upset with me along the way but that I mattered more than taking care of them instead of myself.

Mattering to myself offers the deepest sense of recovery that continues to be a theme in my life – every day I am given multiple opportunities to matter to myself and I continue to practice being true to myself, know what I need and find loving, graceful and powerful ways to stay aligned in my outside world and inside truth. And this has been the most incredible journey of my life.