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I keep having these dreams where those people who walked out of my life when things got tough were back in my life. We’re laughing and doing all of the things we used to do when we were close. It’s such a strange feeling when I wake up from said dreams, because all of these emotions come flooding back, but the strongest one of all is anger.

A good friend of mine reminded me of a quote this past week that said something to the effect of the people we once loved are the ones we hate the most. I never thought I would hate these people as much as I do, and the conflicting thing about this is that if they ever called me up or texted me when they were in trouble I wouldn’t hesitate to talk to them.

I’m a pretty forgiving person when it comes to friends. I try not to hold grudges because being alone isn’t something I’m good at handling. There have been countless times where I gave people chance after chance, even when they continued to let me down and hurt me.

It’s like my past friendships are coming back into my head, and I’m not all too sure what this means. Do I miss them? More than I would like to admit sometimes. Do I have a lot of resentment? You betcha. But I think what makes these dreams mess with my head is the fact that I would still give anything to have them be an important part of my life.

They say the past isn’t something we can change, which is hard because I feel almost like it’s coming back to bite me. I wish I could change; ever since these dreams have been happening (almost nightly), it’s brought up all of the things I did and said when these people were in my life. How I took their friendship for granted, how I pushed them just enough away that they didn’t have full access to what I was going through but were still in my life. How I felt/feel abandoned and betrayed by them and how they decided that I wasn’t worthy of their friendship any longer because what I was going through was too much for them to deal with.

Yet with these blasts from the past, I’ve learned just how far I’ve come. I went from being broken and feeling hopeless of ever changing, to confident and hopeful for my future. I’ve become more cautious about who I let in and who I need to set boundaries with. I’ve learned how to effectively deal with conflict and use those ever so lovely interpersonal effectiveness skills often. I’m more assertive and less of a doormat; and to top it all off: I’m more mature and have a sense of who I am for the first time in my life.

These dreams have seemed like a curse for the past few weeks. My mind has been working on overdrive to try and analyze what this means and what the emotions are that they bring up. Yet I’m realizing now, the more I work through these brought up issues, that they’re also a blessing. It made me realize that who I am now is not who I was back then.

Every person from your past lives as a shadow in your mind. Good or bad, they all helped you write the story of your life, and shaped the person you are today

– Doe Zantamata

I’m living with every step. I can’t live with regret. The past is the past. I’m not worried about it. I can’t change it. I can’t fix it. It is what it is. I’m just living.
-Ryan Sheckler

I’ve been thinking a lot about the person I have been over the past few years and all of the things I’ve done that unbeknownst to me removed the trust people, especially my parents, had in me. Now that I’m working my way back to a healthy, well balanced life of recovery I’m finding areas in which my trust still needs to be gained back; and the majority of those areas circle around food.

There are so many moments where I mention I’m not all too hungry for a meal or that I want to wait a bit to eat as to let myself feel that hunger because I still cannot justify eating when I don’t feel hungry. I never really noticed it before, maybe because I was in treatment and my mother didn’t have to worry that I wouldn’t eat, but lately when I talk to her about food I notice this look of worry and concern as if to say “I don’t care if you’re not hungry, you’re eating. I don’t want you getting sick again”.

It wasn’t until a couple of days ago where I realized I was lacking trust when it came to eating dinner, and it was discouraging to say the least. All I can think of doing is to continue eating the meals my mother says we’re eating (even though I’m pretty sure she doesn’t eat a lot during the day which I still don’t see as fair but I’m a grown ass adult and I can’t base my life and actions on those of others… still a big struggle of mine, but whatever). I want to make another goal of mine for this year to work on gaining that trust back.

I’m finding that when you really start working on yourself all of these moments from the past when you weren’t thinking straight come back to the surface; and it’s in those moments I’m also learning that you need to face them head on. I regret losing the trust of others, and seeing that as them pushing me away and out of their life. Now, I don’t believe they were pushing me away, I think they just distanced themselves and watched as I continued to ride out the shit storm of an eating disorder and depression and letting me get to a point where I couldn’t continue living the way I was. I think it’s that distance that allows us in our sickness to make our own choices and because loved ones know that we won’t listen to heed their warnings that all they can do is sit back and hope we don’t hit rock bottom and drown in our illness before they can reach us again.

I regret not listening to my friends and family and even more so I regret worrying the shit out of my Grandma. I love her to pieces and am so blessed that I have such a close relationship with her. I remember a couple of weeks before I went into residential I was down at her house spending time with her and she looked at me and flat out asked me if I was losing a lot of weight. I remember the worried look on her face as she gave me a glance and as I lied to her face with my classic “yeah I am. I’ve just been working out and eating a little less than I was before”. I regret that moment more than anything because I lied to the one person I love to death. She played a big part in raising me and too see me deteriorating must have been fucking terrifying for her.

Recovery comes with a lot of regrets about the past but like they say, all you can do is learn from them and better who you are in the present.

1. You Can’t Feel Love.

2. You Don’t Know Hope.

3. Help is Seen as a Threat.

2015 is turning out to be an incredible year! Seriously, things keep going the right way and I am feeling so good about my life. The biggest thing to happen to me thus far has been my discharge from outpatient treatment. I was excited on my last day of treatment but scared all at the same time. Since October 2013 my life had revolved around treatment and now that it wasn’t going to, I didn’t really know what to expect.

The whole time in treatment they talk about being in your life, and to be honest I didn’t really know what that meant for me. Treatment was my life, and figuring out life outside of there never really seemed possible or like it was going to happen. But I had a breakthrough of a therapy session where the director of the program (also someone who I look up to and can only hope to be like in a professional sense one day) came in and discussed my future in the program and my future with my eating disorder. I was stuck at the time, feeling hopeless and wanting to give up. I don’t remember what she said to me, but I do remember breaking down and crying in that session (something that is a miracle on its own).

Ever since then, something that I don’t even know what it is clicked I’ve been slowly working my way further into recovery & more into my life. What does that mean exactly?

I’m more able to concentrate on school

I go out on weekends with my friends

I am genuinely more optimistic towards the future

But being in your life is much more than that. I know I’ve posted about it before but now that I’m in my life without the overbearing safety net of treatment 3 days a week, I realize I can handle more of what life throws at me than I once would have been able to. Yet there’s still a lot that scares me about this new life of mine. Going out to bars with my friends is a blast, and having a social life is fucking incredible, but I realized I’m still needing to work on recovery as a part of my new life. I was faced with a food challenge this past weekend when I went out, and in the moment handled it like a fucking champion; but the next day I didn’t know what to do about my meals (I was at Denny’s at 3am and had to eat a meal, because that’s what normal people do and I didn’t want my friends to think I was still sick) so I ended up restricting a little and using laxatives. So that part of my life still needs a shit ton of work, but like I said I’m feeling so incredible being out of treatment.

For me, I’ve figured out that being in my life means being a student, a friend, a daughter; more than it means being an eating disorder & a patient.



 
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