Pushing through~

So it's been quite a struggle the past two weeks of consuming so much food. And it's getting harder. My dietician has been great through it all as has my therapist. I am so grateful for them both and could never do this alone.

The body image is quite bad but despite it, I wear what I want and try to be stylish. "Ana" has robbed me so many times of livng in the moment and wearing what I want due to hating my body so much.

I look back at these high school photos of me at a healthier weight but in the throws of bulimia.(2nd photo I am bottom right/ 3rd photo bottom left) I hated my body then and felt like I was the biggest one on the dance team. I remember how we were weighed in the dance room weekly and how they even measured our wrists for bone structure. I adored my coaches but looking back I feel it was too much. I am 5'8 so was one of the taller ones and often put in the back of routines until further along in the year. To me tall meant big so I pushed to lose weight. I went from 135 to 120 as I was told I would be benched if lower once my coach found my diet pills and that I was exercising a lot and purging. I was getting straight A's, in peer counseling, on the varsity dance team, and dying inside. The pain was too deep so I strived for perfection and took it out on my body.

I wish I could go back and erase time. I would have gotten help then and gotten out of the misery of the bulimia turned anorexia. The sooner you catch it, if way early on, the better. I don't say easier because it's never easy but having it 20 years it becomes ingrained in who we are and so hard to break free from the grips. It's like "ana" has sunk her teeth in and wont let go without ripping me to shreds but I am working on being released slowly so the pain is not all at once and the wounds aren't gaping.

I am healtheir in weight in these photos though saw fat then. I am trying to strive for health, not weight. I don't know what I weigh now though I know it's gone up. I have to be okay with this in order to recover from this and someday help others recover as well.

((hugs))
Brandee