Bravery.

I got brave tonight. I emailed my therapist and admitted I needed help, that I was scared, and even though I hated myself for reaching out to her, I trust her and need her help. It's so painful waiting for a response.

I decided to reach out for help because, like I said, I was scared. I was having intrusive thoughts that could turn into very dangerous behaviors. I've come too far to go back to where I was in February 2011, suicidal and in the psychiatric hospital and on death's door from my ED. Deep down I don't want to die. But when things get really hard like they have been, something in my brain seems to think that's the best way out.

I had a conversation with a friend tonight that really made me wonder. Maybe I need to change up what I'm doing with therapy. Whether that be seeing a new therapist (which I REALLY don't want to do) or trying out DBT or EMDR or something else. I just feel like I need something different. Talking isn't really getting me anywhere these days. My dietitian has been helpful in the sense that every time I see her she gives me an assignment. For example, she had me buy calcium supplements and iron supplements and told me how much to take on a daily basis. She also had me research churches in my area and gymnastics gyms that offer adult classes. She always follows up with me on these assignments. It's accountability I guess. And it's helped me. I found a church. I signed up for gymnastics classes and I am taking my supplements. Maybe that's what I need to start doing with therapy. I don't know. And that's one of the things I addressed in my email to my therapist.

I've been seeking out all sorts of inspiration for recovery. I bought Johanna Kandel's book "Life Beyond Your Eating Disorder" a while back and I have started reading that again. I am going through assignments in my Remuda Ranch binder. I am reading inspirational blogs. I have deleted people off of my Facebook and Twitter who are not in recovery or who are triggering. I have been making inspirational playlists and spending more time devoted to prayer and meditation.

Today was day 3 of no purging. Which is the longest I have gone in a month. Woo Hoo! It's getting easier, it really is. Once you begin to break that cycle, the urges are less and less. I am still struggling with restricting though.

I am anxious for my dietitian appointment on Friday for a multitude of reasons. I know it will be a positive appointment. I am going to continue to NOT look at my weight and ask my dietitian to NOT tell me what the numbers are doing.

Things are improving, slowly but surely.

quotes that have inspired me lately.

Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.
Marie Curie

There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life.
John Lennon

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the willingness to act in spite of it.
Unknown

Through humor, you can soften some of the worst blows that life delivers. And once you find laughter, no matter how painful your situation might be, you can survive it.
Bill Cosby

The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing, and becomes nothing. He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn, feel, change, grow or love. Chained by his certitude, he is a slave; he has forfeited his freedom. Only the person who risks is truly free.
Leo Buscaglia

Don’t think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It’s self-conscious and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can’t “try” to do things. You simply “must” do things.
Ray Bradbury

To hurt is as human as to breathe.
J.K. Rowling, The Tales of Beedle the Bard

You were like coming up for fresh air. It’s like I was drowning and you saved me.
Grey’s Anatomy

Almost all things in life deal with love, the lack of love, and the desire to be loved.
Paul Julian Banks

You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing.
E.B. White, Charlotte’s Web

Everyone feels that void. Everyone who has the balls to look inside themselves, anyway. It’s what life’s all about, a search.
Tiffanie DeBarto

I have the choice of being constantly active and happy or introspectively passive and sad, or I can go mad by ricocheting in between.
Sylvia Plath


I always wonder why birds choose to stay in the same place when they can fly anywhere on the earth. Then I ask myself the same question.
Anonymous

You set yourself up for happiness or you set yourself up for sadness. Either way, it’s your doing.
Jill Davis