Lies

Lie-a false statement made with deliberate intent to deceive; an intentional untruth; a falsehood.

Yesterday was one of those days when the lies of my eating disorder become meshed with the reality some part of me knows to be true. A day that leaves me feeling hopeless and alone. I had such a hard time with meals yesterday. I was trapped in the lies of my eating disorder. I looked at them as truth. I felt embarassed to be seen eating because I had bad thoughts in my head about how much weight I have gained and how gross I am. I hate that I should be here in complete relaxation with my family but my eating disorder once again has found it's way to take that away from me. I am constantly embarassed about everything I do. My family loves me and is proud of me. So they ask lots of questions about the food I cook and what I eat... I can't stand it. I feel gross. I have to start fighting against this. How? I can't seem to reverse or heal the mindset that has been permanent in my mind for a very long time. I allow myself to believe lies such as.... Food = weakness, food= weight gain, enjoying food is out of the question. My eating disorder tells me that if I do it I have to hate it and never have positive thoughts about it. I can't seem to completely surrender. I need to start conciously deciding to open my fist and have more of a accepting "open handed" mindset. I will NEVER get better if I can't find a way to stop believing the lies and talking back to them. I just feel hopeless some days because I fear that I will never be able to live a life where I do not feel trapped in this with no way out. I am so afraid that this will never stop. I will never heal. I will be miserable forever. I truly do have a desire to heal and live a life completely for the lord with nothing pulling me back. I want a life where I can live freely with no chains pulling me down. I am afraid of that never happening. Maybe just maybe... light is coming soon and if I keep pushing I will be able to see it. I am a firm believer that God has a plan for me. That is the thing that helps get me through everyday. God loves me. God has a plan for my life. As hard as this is, I must keep striving to push these thoughts aside and look to God. He has a plan for my life. I want to worship him with all of my mind, heart,and soul. I do not want to ever return to the life I once lived worshiping a disorder. Lies can hurt us more than anything. Today I will try to believe what I know to be true deep in my heart and CHOOSE not to believe the lies of my eating disorder.


Yesterday I sat in the bookstore floor rading a book about emotionally abusive relationships... As I read I was reminded of how real my past was and how hurtful it was. Almost every word I read described a realationship I have or had that was painful. Relationships with men and relationships with my parents. I lived my 20 years believing how I was treated was all "normal." In many different ways, I have been suffering from emotional abuse for years. This had impacted me very deeply. Yes, this is sad and upseting... but... not all of this is "bad." I am who I am today because of all of the things I have been through. There is good and bad in every situation. God has helped me along the way. Now he has blessed me with the best lesson of all. Today I can look back at my past and see what I could not see then. I see that the things I just accepted as normal as unhealthy and abusive. I am starting to see how this affected me. I am starting to see a path that stems off of this dark road I have been on for a long while. Today I have a voice. Today I know I do not have to accept this abuse. I have the right and strength to seperate myself from it. I choose to believe my truth and stand up for that and no longer give into any lies that before I knew as truth.

Laura Katherine

waves

Today, I have sadly lost sight of the "decision" I made yesterday. The decision did not live throughout the night... The thoughts found a way to creep in as they always do. These thoughts creep in and bring me down. They bring me back to a place far away from God and closely enmessed with my eating disorder. I am exausted. sick. tired. I fight day after day and day for a life in freedom and keep getting dragged back into a hallowlife. Some days I experience moments that I feel I can come up for a breath of relief only to be quickly knocked down by the next wave. Like the waves in the ocean that never stop crashing in... some powerful, some gentle, some large, some small. All kinds of "waves" crash into our lives daily. The important thing is that we get back up. As hard as the journey to recovery is, the roads of my past lead to one place... a dead end. I must push through every wave and look not to my eating disorder for support but to my lord and savior for comfort. I believe God has a plan greater for me than all of this. Greater than I can imagine. The second I look to my old behaviors for comfort, I lose all sight of this. I lay here during what is supossed to be a time of relaxation wieghed down by the thoughts in my head. My eating disorder finds a way ,even when I am surounded by loving family and beatiful creation, to interupt my peace. Taking photographs of memories becomes torture. Simple statements, questions, and compliments about food become harsh criticism. Anything said in regard to my body becomes fuel for me to tell myself how  BLANK,BLANK,BLANK,andBLANK I am. I have had such paralyzing  bad body image lately that I can hardly stand being seen, having people comment on me apperance what so ever, and just being in my own skin. Instead of allowing all of this to win and hiding out in my largest pair of sweats in complete isolation (as I used to do daily), I went out in my bathing suit and layed in the sun with my best friend. Yes, I had horrible thoughts but I was not completely letting them win. I am not yet in complete acceptance of my body, but I am one step closer than yesterday.     "The one who sows to his flesh will reap corruption from the flesh, but the one who sows to the spirit will reap eternal life from the spirit" Galatians 6:8

dr

Daily Decisions

The sun is beaming down on my face as I sit among God's perfectly beautiful creation. The ocean breeze is blowing my hair in and out of my face as I sit and soak in the rays of god's presence. I feel more comfort that I have in a long time. I am here with my family visiting our second home as we do once every year at this time. I feel love and joy suround me. I am blessed to have a loving family and deep friendships to help me through everyday. I feel very lucky to have the opportunity to spend a week of joyus relaxation here with loved one's. Even here in the midst of all of god's blessings.... I am fighting of dark thoughts left and right. These thoughts often imprison my mind and steel my joy. The self critical thoughts start flooding in and I check out of the presence of God all around me and I check into the controlling thoughts of my eating disorder. These thoughts are intense and unloving. I start to obsess about my body and how I must be a fool for thinking I can wear a bathing suit and what others have to be thinking about me and all the weight I have gained. I start picking apart all of my imperfections and allowing them to fuel plans of letting the eating disorder win. In the past, I have allowed these thoughts to fester and turn into life sucking, unloving actions. They would paralize me and bring me to a place far from the lord. Today I want to make a concious decision to fight back against my eating disorder. I choose turn away from the unloving and open my heart and mind to my heavenly father. Even if I can only hold this commitment for today, it is a commitment I have never been able to keep before. I am alive today because of god. He patiently waited for me to surrender to his love and he blessed me with miracles along the way... miracles that I was blind to, I now know changed my life. Today I choose to lay here, in my bathing suit, and soak in the sun's rays while I allow the lord to fill my mind with joy and gratitude for the blessings around me. I fight against the evil thoughts knocking on the back door of my past and look to God for a path I know he has paved. I spent years fighting against my body.In that time, I lost sight of God but he never lost sight of me. He made my body resilient against all the harm I caused it. He healed me when at first, I did not want to heal. Even when I had lost all hope and all connection to my lord he patiently awaited my acceptance of his eternal love. The unloving thoughts are creeping in and atempting to win me over. Today I choose to surrender. Not to the lies of my disorder but to the love of God. For my body is his temple, he created every square inch of me to his desire and he created my body in his perfect image. I am working on accepting my body as part of his perfectly imperfect creation and not as an enemy to battle against day after day. I am opening up my heart to God and turning away from all evil that attemtps to destroy my connection to the one and only great I am. For the first time ever I can firmly say that today I am chosing life. A life lived for God rather than a life lived (if that is what you wanna call it) controlled by my disorder.

Laura Katherine