Today is a new day and another chance to choose recovery.

I have been battling the flu for the past few days and not feeling well at all. My appetite was null and nothing sounded appealing. This meant reverting back to my basic rules of three. Three meals, three snacks, no more than 3 hours between eating.

While I am not quite fully healed, I am certainly feeling better - just the woozy fatigue and weakness remaining. My appetite has returned, but in times like this, I can go to the extreme shoving everything in sight in my pie hole. Again, rules of three. I am finding meal shakes work best for breakfast followed by s simple morning snack.

I am feeling more resolve and less depression, which helps too. I am recognizing that while suffering is a choice, pain is inevitable. Feeling the pain, rather than numbing it, is the only way to get to the other side.

It's supposed to be my word for the year. I am not doing a great job at it.

Mostly because of ED.

I just want to numb. My feelings, my thoughts, my existence.

While I am entirely happy to be out of "fuck it land" where I have no rules, no diet, no restrictions, no exercise, no purging, no planning... That means I am started to lean towards the other side. No desire to eat. Nothing sounds good. Eating solely to keep myself from passing out. And soon comes the rules to "keep me in line."

Hunger either makes me angry, makes me have obsessive thoughts of food, induces shame, or.... it helps me numb the world.

I'm not sure why I am struggling. Having such a hard time finding joy.

I bet that would surprise everyone around me. I am so good at faking it, at being in the moment so that I find temporary joy, but it's never lasting.

The pain always comes back to ED. I am so exhausted and tired of fighting this brutal disease. I just want to be cured. I want to not hate my body. I want to have a healthy relationship with food and with movement.

I keep telling myself "this too shall pass" and "one day at a time" and "the pain is only temporary" but it's getting hard to believe. It's been two years of recovery treatment and no end in sight.

I now what I need to do, but being intentional seems too exhausting.

I should have picked a different word.

When I first started my recovery journey, I Mia thought that it would be a beginning to end quick progress and before I knew it, bulimia would be a thing of my past.

That didn't happen.

So here I am, two years later, beginning the third year of my recovery journey.

I remember making that first phone call to schedule an appointment thinking they would have a magic pill that would make me want to stop eating. I remember them asking why I wanted to come in, and me saying something along the lines of "I think I might have an eating disorder." But I also remember the utter shock when the practitioner said, "You fit the diagnostic criteria for severe bulimia."

Two years, two long long years. So much has happened and changed yet so  so much is the same.

My behaviors have drastically reduced. When I initially started this journey,  had 10-12 behaviors per day on average. But the thoughts are loud, perhaps louder than ever. I even dream at night of using behaviors. Sometimes I wake shaking and shaken. I know, at least for this moment, I am always one bad day away from a full blown relapse. While part of me does accept the existence of complete recovery, I think it will take more time for me to get there.Thirty years of disordered eating it's going to take more than two years.

I have new goals. I've come a long way in my relationship with food. My psychical body is still experiencing the devastating effects of long-term malnutrition, but my overall relationship with food has improved. To think when I started this journey two years ago, I could not eat breakfast without some kind of behavior.

Movement, that's the new goal. Make peace with movement. I am scared shitless, and I'm not entirely sure that I can do this part, but I have to trust the process.

I'm a perfectionist, rule follower and really good at following instructions (and giving them too!).

So.

When I got my diagnosis and started my recovery journey, I thought, "I've got this." I thought I would follow the new "rules" and do what "they" tell me and then I would be cured.

I thought recovery would look like


Versus what it really looks like - the reality is that recovery is a journey for me right now. When I get focused on recovery as a destination, my anxiety gets the best of me, and dun, dun, dun... relapse.

I think it is pretty safe to say that I am knee deep in relapse right now. Not so much in relentless behaviors, but the emotional cycle of shame and self-hatred for my body and food.

My recovery has definitely taken on the second image much more than the first. I am reflecting as to the many reasons why - and here is what I have come up with.
1) I am FINALLY dealing with the deep down shit that I have buried and swallowed for so long. And it is painful and raw and incredibly painful. Each layer I address brings memories and pain for me to cope with.
2) In the face of medical issues, I quit smoking. Quitting smoking and quitting behaviors and dealing with shit? Yup. Relapse. I often feel like I can quit smoking or I can quit behaviors, but doing both, I constantly doubt myself.
3) I need to rewire my neuro pathways a find a new way of thinking and living. - I have been living with disordered eating/and eating disorder for more than 3 decades. Behaviors are my go to, like muscle memory. Feel sad? Behaviors. Feel anxious? Behaviors. Feel triggered? Behaviors. (insert note.... I will try as much as possible to refrain from discussing specific behaviors on this blog.)

I am starting a new type of treatment next week and I am both fearful and excited. I will be meeting with a dietitian and therapist at the same time. I am stuck in "all or nothing" thinking pattern (I will definitely talk more about this in a future blog!). For me and my ED, this is either extreme rules and rituals (more restrictive behaviors) or what I fondly call "fuck it land" where there are no rules or boundaries (and lots of binge behaviors). I have yet to uncover what pushes me toward one side or the other. I'm sure therapy will get me there sooner rather than later.

So here's the ultimate deal. Recovery is messy. Recovery is hard. Recovery means being vulnerable. Recovery means good days and bad days. Recovery means set backs.

This is it. This is the beginning. I have been trying to start this thing for over a year. But crippling fear of vulnerability and even more crippling shame have prevented me in doing so. So, this is where I will start because trying to think of a way to do otherwise ain't gonna work.

I am sitting at my computer feeling just generally pissed with my life. My life is always chaos. Always some kind of fucking chaos.

All three kids are sick... and home on summer break. Work is crazier than ever and this is the first summer that I have to go into work (I'm sure I'll write about my job at some point). Hence the current chaos that has brushed me to the brink of my sanity. I have not nourished my body well today, so I just had a late lunch. My belly is full but I feel entirely empty.

I promise that this blog won't always or only be about my fucking crazy life, but in a way that's all it will be about. Why? because the insanity and chaos  fuel the voice in my head. No, not voices. One voice. And my voice has a name.

ED - nickname, shortened for eating disorder.

Hi, my name is Jillian and I suffer from bulimia.

I'm a significantly privileged Caucasian, educated, upper-class,  cisgender, (progressive) Christian female. In spite of all that privilege, somehow, about a year ago, I found myself in a dietitian's office choking on the words "You have an eating disorder."

I initially went to see this dietitian knowing I had an issue, but really hoping it was Binge Eating Disorder (BED) so I could get a magic pill being used to treat BED. I had heard that this little pill would suppress my desire to binge. But what I had really heard, was that if I could get my hands on this little pill, I would never want to eat and all of my problems would be solved.

Instead of leaving with a prescription, I left with the reality that my life was never going to be the same. Deeeeeeeep down, I knew that my relationships with food and my weight was problematic. But I had no idea how significant of a problem it was until I dove head first into the world of eating disorder recovery.

In my head, there are three reasons I am starting this blog:

1) Our thin-privileged, skinny-obsessed diet culture has major misinformation and myths about dieting and eating disorders. I want to be a part of setting that record straight. I hope and pray that the more I share the message, the more I will believe it. Let's face it, after 30 years of dealing with this monster, keeping ED's voice quiet takes a lot of hard work.
2) I want other people to know they are not alone. ED thrives in isolation and secrecy (similar to addictions, though I do not believe that ED is an addiction to food). The more I share, the more connected I feel and the less shame I assume.
3) Clinicians are pretty savvy and already seem to know every thought that I have, but maybe my story will find the right person at the right time and can be used to help some one else beat this dreadful disease.

Ultimately, my intentions are to share my journey though writing with whomever shall find this blog. I believe recovery is possible, and I believe I am emerging from buli(Mia) to me.