Tag: support

It’s My Party and I’ll Wean When I Want to …

lissa102795 Comments

The decision to wean is a very personal and very complicated decision and it’s not one you can (painlessly) make overnight.

Let me state up front I have a loving and supportive husband. I wouldn’t trade him for anyone (OK, anyone except maybe Ryan Reynolds 😉 and only for a night…!).

We’ve been together through thick and thin over the past 10+ years. We are opposites in some ways, but we usually complement one another … or butt heads entirely because we’re both pretty headstrong! Continue reading “It’s My Party and I’ll Wean When I Want to …” →

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Examining “Blogotherapy” & Support

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support_grpA lot of recovery bloggers blog anonymously because they fear other people finding out the truth about them — and their concerns are certainly valid.

I actually was quasi-anonymous in the beginning, too. After all, the image we portray in our professional and personal lives can make or break us …

But oftentimes, especially when we’re hiding a deep, dark secret (like an ED or DE issues …) that image is not identical to what we actually see when we peel back the layers of who we truly are.

In many ways, I was living a double-life … the elusive chewing-spitting behaviors coupled with over-exercising, body-loathing, and midnight/mindless eating … and then presenting myself at work or around friends as this girl who has her stuff together … when inside, I was crumbling.

Naturally, I used to worry in the beginning about how I might be judged by others who might by chance find my blog: peers, colleagues, friends, superiors, etc. What will they think of me?! Will they lose respect for me?! Will they look at me differently?

But once I realized that owning my issue made it real and tangible to overcome (and that it’s ok to not be “perfect”) … suddenly the fear associated with “getting found out” withered away.

Continue reading “Examining “Blogotherapy” & Support” →

Perception and Reality

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lightbulb1I had an epiphany after watching THIN for the second time, this time with my husband.

Needless to say, he was very, very disturbed by the movie. I’ll be honest, part of why I wanted him to see it was to show him, “Yes I am still struggling, but look, I’m not as extreme as these girls.”

But my husband is incredibly bright, and he knows me so well that it’s scary. While he agrees that I’m not as extreme as those girls, he picked up on some of the things the girls did — their behaviors — that mirrored mine.

To name a few … changing clothes 3 million times (guilty since age 7?), staring at myself in the mirror and prodding (totally a weight loss result — the obsession), chewing-and-spitting (my formerly shameful secret; now I just relapse from time to time), picking apart their food (guilty!), obsessing over weight gain, real or imagined (I try not to, but sometimes find myself doing it) ordering specifically (though that’s nothing new really; I’ve been a picky eater for as long as I can recall); ordering “diety.” (I’ve gotten better with this one).

And I wonder if subconsciously, I wanted him to point these things out in the film. Because they’re all things he’s been concerned about for me for years now; things he’s tried to talk me out of and things that, especially in the beginning, I shrugged off (“I’m not obsessing!”.)

All this time, he’s just wanted to make me see I am beautiful as I am, that I don’t need to obsess over my body, that there’s more to life than my outer self. Continue reading “Perception and Reality” →