Helpful message

God did not ever intend on us being alone. Simple statement. Powerful meaning. Until this past sunday, I had never realized this. When I was in my ED, I was ALL alone. I neglected all of my relationships. I was completely lost... blinded by my addiction. I neglected the most important relationship of all... the one with God. Leaving a life consumed by my ED means that I can find a life in recovery. A life full of meaningful connections and love. When I live a life in recovery, I will know deep down that I am never alone...for wherever I may go the lord is with me. In the same message I took with me that words, "if it isn't coming from someone that loves me, I DON'T CARE." Painful unloving words have no significance. The words of our loved one's are the only one's that have meaning. I have never lived with this in mind. I spend my life concerned with what a stranger, insect, or object think of me. Worst of all, parts of me do not love myself. Why do I listen to the unloving thoughts that play in my head daily? The thoughts that come from a part of me filled with self-hatred and deprived any self-compassion. I am chained down by them. Whenever the accepting, loving side attempts to over-take them; the other part goes on a rampage. Will it ever end? Will I ever find a place that I can truly view myself with a loving, radical acceptance? Not only a few parts of me but ALL of me. In my past, I spent life avoiding relationships at all cost. I kept myself in isolation to protect and devote time to my ED. When I went to treatment, I had to give it all up. In doing so, I was forced to unleash feelings that I had burried deep, deep down. Dealing with all of these feelings left me convinced that I would be alone forever. I truly thought I would die alone. "who would want to be with me? " When I began to open up and let others in, I found myself in truly loving, meaningful relationships with the most amazing women I have ever met. Even then that part of me was convinced  that it was all fake. I second guessed myself. I found myslef opening up and then frantically withdrawing. I felt such self hatred towards myself, that I found it impossible for anyone to actually care about me... Looking back, I see that it was in the moments that I came out of hiding.... I truly came back to life. Those relationships helped me through the darkness and toward life anew. I am forever grateful for every one of them. Still today, I find myself afraid to let others in. I have transforemd but not yet have I completely conquered.I used to have the defeating belief that I would spend forever alone. I lived everyday with this hopelessness. Today, there are times of vulnerability when I find myself trapped in these old thoughts. I am still afraid. The broken parts of me still need time and effort to mend. Some days, I just feel trapped. Petrified. The difference is now I have found the ultimate connection in life. My relationship with God. God did NOT intend for us to be alone. God placed special people in my life during this time of hardship. He placed them there for a reason. With God in my heart, I can challenge the fears. The fears that became second nature to me. Fears of being hurt and abandoned. The experiences and fears from my past haunt me. I know now that the only way to overcome them is to trust in God. He will never leave or harm me.

Be strong and courageous, do not be afraid becasue of them, for the lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you or forsake you. Deuteronomy 31:6

Choice

Today I have power. I have choice. I find myself looking to my ED in time's of stress, anxiety, and, depression. Times when feelings seem too much. When I feel anything real, my automatic reaction is look to my ED to "fix" it. In reality, acting out with not "fix" anything. It simply covers them up for the time being. If I completely resort back to my ED, I will supress all feelings by focussing solely on it. I will begin to supress all feelings and only put energy into covering them with the blanket of my ED. These feelings don't disapear... eventually they will burst. Cleaning up after an eruption, is far more painful than actually feeling them and using skills to deal with them as they come. The trick is not to let a glance down the road turn into a u turn. When I lose power and choice to the disease, I also lose intrest in healing. When I am completley in the depths of my ed, I lose all interest in life. I am slowly killing myself. Keeping myself on the path to recovery, whether I am standing solitary, stepping forward, or looking forward after a step back.... is crucial. In a life of recovery I can have choice. I can have hope. I can feel all emotions. I can find self. I can grow. I can help.I can have relationships.I can worship and serve the lord. In an eating disorder, I can have death. Spiritual, emotional, and pysical. My goal is to constantly assure that my mind is set on a life of recovery. If I allow myself to lose sight of this. I will lose everything else too. I will unknowingly be back on a dead end street.... This street is not a one way. There is hope. The key is in fighting to keep this hope alive.

Still Fighting


Laura Katherine

Realms

 

Realms: the region, sphere, or domain within which anything occurs, prevails, or dominates.

"And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell." Matthew 10:28

 

I feel that I am centrally located between two realms. In the past, I lived a life entirely submerged in the realm of my eating disorder. All encompassing. All dominating. All controlling. When I was forced  to tip toe outside, I felt afraid and deranged at the idea of change. Once my body became more steady and I was able to take a few steps away from the past, God began to work in me. He brought me back to life. For the first time, I truly began to feel his presence. Now day after day I feel myself trapped in the midst of a battle. The "comfort" of my eating disorder vs. the desire to know, love,and serve my lord. My heart hurts at the thought of this. Why can't I just let go of it all and give it all up to God? I desire to grow closer in my relationship with him and my faith. As I said, I am trapped between the two. I am in a tug- of - war. I deeply desire to live life in a way God wants. When I step forward.... I often get pulled right back. The disorder is strong. Nothing is a strong as God. I choose to keep fighting. No matter how hard the way of my past tugs, I choose to persevere. I know for a fact that I can not fully devote my life to the lord with any fragment of my ED present. I feel my fist tightly grapsing the disorder in different situations and in those moments I am far from God. I have to keep looking to him for guidance. I have to open my heart, mind,and soul to him. I know he will lead me on the path he has paved and away from the evil. I read mathew 10 and as I thought about the verse, I realized it's true significance. When we are pysically harmed, our soul is still intact. God blesses us with healing. When both our body and soul are taken over by evil, ( whatever way it emerges) God yerns for our revival but we have our eyes closed and back turned from him. He may call to us but will we even hear him? When our body is harmed or in danger, we become afraid. When our body and soul are "dead" we have no capacity to feel fear. I find it ironic how incongruent this is with Mathew 10. We fear when our hearts know God can heal. We do not fear when it is most called for. In my case, it took hitting rock bottom to feel anything at all. Now that I have commited to and reconected to my higher power, my greatest fear is losing it again to the realm of my eating disorder. I hope and pray to find my way out of the darkness, out of the clouds, and into the light. I desire to give it ALL to God. To LIVE life for him. That is the realm I want to live in.For any other is no life at all.

 

Laura Katherine

 

Armor

" Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes...and pray in the spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers..." Esesians 6:10-11

I sat in church yesterday with tears forming in my eyes and a heart overflowing with emotion. I felt ashamed of myself for my past ways. I kept thinking about all of the time I spent completely lost from the lord and the life he gives me. I spent so long stuck in "dead" place. A place where I worshiped a terrible disease every second of everyday instead of worshiping my heavenly father. I didn't even acknowledge him. With all the time spent worshiping my eating disorder, I had and made no time for the lord. How could I have done such a thing?? How did I let all of these things happen? The first time my therapist told me that I am fully worshiping my eating disorder and not God... I became extremely angry and didn't believe her one bit. Now my eyes and mind are clear and I know that I truly was doing just that. How lucky am I that when I turned away from the lord he never gave up on me. He blessed me with cennections with the most wonderful women I have ever known. He blessed me with the time I needed in treatment but never thought I would get or want. He blessed me by allowing my body to heal after all the harm I caused it. He blessed me with all the tools I needed to finally find my way again. I found the Lord again. He truly gave me the breath of life after I had been suffocating for a very long while. He helped me see the well lite path the he has paved for me and allowed me time to slowly turn away from the dead end I was headed towards and to the path only he knows because he has planned it specifically for me. I still have days when I allow the thoughts to take over and bring me back a few steps but overall I believe the only direction I am striving for is forward. I was reminded of the verse above yesterday. I thought about all these things that often weigh heavy on my heart. ( Bad words in know BOOOP ;) ) I want to do just what the verse comands. I want to face this evil by putting on the full armor of God. With God's help, I can put on this armor to fight off the BAD body image, the self hatred, the temptation on my ED, the urges to restrict or over exercise, the anxiety and fear... anything that stands in the way of my recovery and my relationship with God has to go. This is the most difficult challenge I have ever faced. Yesterday I really realized I can never acheive a life of freedom without keeping this verse close to my heart and mind daily. I can never heal without the help of the lord. The only way I have been able to take any inch forward on the path towards recovery is with the help of him. I have become exausted after all the times I have slipped and all the inner battles I fight daily. I know now that I can never do this alone. Today I will put on the full armor of God and stand against all evil.

Laura Katherine

Decisions

Every moment of every day we all have choice and all must make decisions. This sounds simple but for me it is very enlightening. Yesterday, someone very special to me asked, "What do YOU want to do?" It was not until today that I realized how momentous those words were. This question led me to take time to think and journal about what I really wanted. For the first time in my life, someone asked ME what I wanted. My entire life has been about what EVERYONE else wanted me to do. I have grown up always having the people in my life tell me exactly what I have to do and how I should do it. No one ever asked me what it was that I wanted to do. Today I thought about what I wanted and it felt liberating. I just wrote out the things my heart desires. Not what my eating disorder wants. Not what my dad wants. Not what my mom wants. The only thing in this life that really matters is what God wants. I know he wants me to live a life full of love and joy not one controlled by a disease or determined by others. He has a purpose for me. He is the only one who knows what that purpose is and I am the only one that can find it. Everything happens for a reason. God has purpose in all things. There have been times in which I have felt unwort
hy, alone, defeated. I felt that the world was crashing around me and I wanted to find the exit. I experienced very dark moments that I will never forget. I made a choice to keep fighting minute by minute. I had no idea what I was fighting for... all I wanted was to go back to the comfort of my ed or not live at all. I may have lost sight of God but he NEVER gave up on me. God gives us choice and it's up to us to decide. Will I choose the path that may be more challenging but will bring me closer to God? Will I choose the path with instant gratification of worldly materials? Will this decison bring me closer to God's purpose? Will this decision bring me farther away from it than before? Today, I relize that with the lord in my heart, all that matters is me chosing what I want. Today, I will not let my ED be my identity. I will choose to do what I know is best and not give in to it's lie's. Today, I will administer the blessings he gives me daily. As long as we look to the lord and listen... we will know what to do. Today, I choose to listen to the lord and not the controller of my past.

To the special person that cared enough to ask "What do YOU want?"
I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Laura Katherine

Hopeful Misery

God helped me realize something today. He always has a way of doing that when we just open our souls to him and listen. I had just finished praying when these thoughts entered my mind. I have been down for a while now having many days that I feel I just can not fight any longer. I feel defeated and hopeless. Recovery is a battle. Somedays, I want nothing but to trow in my towell and wave the white flag. I realized today (with God's help), that even though at times it feels that recovery is as miserable as the eating disorder there is a difference. A drastic difference. Recovery so far has felt anything but "good." Fighting for recovery is one of the hardest things I have or will ever face in my life. I start to wonder... will this ever get better? Are they telling the truth when they tell me to just keep doing it and it will slowly get better one day? I get sucked into this dark hole where I tell myself things will never get better that I will feel miserable forever. Maybe that is my Eating disorder trying to presuade me... I am not sure. The difference in myself in my eating disorder and myself in early recovery is simple. When I was in my ED, I was a broken, hallow shell of a person. I was physically, mentally, and spiritually "dead." I was miserable and I didn't care. I had no dreams and no hope. In my mind I had nothing to fight for. I had just about no will to live. I look at where I am now and I feel that I am a completely different person. I have had a pyhsical, mental, and spiritual reawakening. My body feels better. I no longer spend everyday feeling like death. I can think straight. I can have healthy relationships. I can feel. I have recommited my life to jesus christ and I never ever want to lose sight of that.I have oppourtunities and dreams. God has placed so many people into my life to help me win this battle. The people that have been brought into my life in the past year are not coincidence. Everything happens for a reason. The differnce is that before I was alive but not in any way living.I was miserable.Before I felt  there was nothing to fight for no reason to get out of the misery. Today, I have dreams, connections, relationships.... Today when I am having a hard day and my eating disorder wants me to give in to it's lie's.... I will remember that God has placed so many ,well worth fighting for , gifts into my life. Yesterday, I was miserable in my ED. Today, I may be miserable but God gives me a glimmer of hope. That is worth fighting for.