The Miracle of the Ability to Change.

The following is an email to a prior "sponsor" of mine; a "sponsor" in a 12 step program is a person who mentors another person and helps them in their recovery, and to "work the steps" with them. You tell them everything; you call them when you need someone, and they come to know you inside and out. They come to mean a lot to you. Anyway, this has happened with more than one person in my life, but this person had to set a boundary with me around my eating disorder in order to protect themselves; they couldn't continue to watch me hurting/killing myself, and they needed to have some space from me until I was in recovery. So over the last few years, I haven't really had her in my life anymore. I still love and miss her like crazy, and the other day I decided to send her an email update on how I'm doing; I wanted her to know how much things are changing, that I really think it's genuine this time. I've removed her name from the email in order to respect her anonymity.

______,

It's been such a pleasure and a gift to see your smile in the photos you've posted on Facebook; I love seeing you happy. I so hope things are going well, and that you're generally happy in your life. I love you more than words can do justice...I always will.
I have a couple of things I'd like to say to you, and I hope it doesn't make you uncomfortable; I just miss you. I so respect your need for space. I get that if you'll have me in your life again someday, it'll need to be after I have sustained solid recovery for an extended period of time. For all I know you've moved on with your life, and we may not be close again. I will respect whatever you want and need, and whatever supports your happiness. But I do miss you tremendously.
I want you to know how well I'm doing...regardless of how it affects our relationship, I'm proud to tell you and I also think it'll make you smile...it shocks me, I'm in awe at my own progress. I'm actually proud of myself. I had given up, not long ago, for quite some time.Things are changing - things HAVE changed, so, so much over these last ten months here at Eating Recovery Center. I've been out in Denver at ERC for ten months now and it took about eight and a half for me to begin to be able to see and feel the changes in myself, but they are dramatic.
Today, I respect myself. The biggest change - one that makes me cry when I think about it - is that I can honestly say that I want to be alive today...and I am happy to be alive. The other biggest: I truly have hope today. I'm not overly confident, and for all I know this could just be yet smother treatment stay...but I have a suspicion that it isn't. I have fear, too...but it's amazing to feel hopeful; _____, today I actually want to DO things with my future, AND I regularly do "normal" things I couldn't make myself do for years, because I was so depressed. I used to pray for death. Today, I want to go to Africa and volunteer; I actually believe there's a chance that I'll get my GED, and go to college. I look on University websites for fun, the ones I'm interested in, and I'm not kidding around with my goals - Mills, UC Berkeley...I want to sing at Open Mic nights. I sing in the shower, and when I'm walking back to the apartment from the bus stop (I'm in Partial now, so I'm still here eleven hours a day but stay in one of their apartments, with some roommates). I've started keeping an art journal again - that only started up again in the last week and a half. For ten months I refused to do any kind of artwork or to attend our art therapy group. I want to relearn how to play the piano, and I want to learn to play the saxophone. I actually call my friends, when I had grown so used to isolation that calling people still scares me. But sometimes I can make myself do it anyway, and I answer their calls. I actually started doing LAUNDRY (that's still a newer thing) and I take care of my hygiene on a regular basis, with showering and brushing my teeth...I want to go to school and get my Masters in Psych, and specialize in chronic cases of depression, eating disorders and addiction (wonder where I got those ideas, eh?). I want to work with people who feel utterly hopeless. You know that I'm not the only one in my life who had come to believe I wouldn't get better. My parents, my mother in particular, still don't seem to have a whole lot of faith that I'll be able to sustain my recovery post treatment. But holy shit, I have faith that I really might.
I'm at a much higher weight than I'd like to be; my metabolism is kind of shot from everything it's been through. But my dietician says it'll normalize over time, especially when I discharge from here and do things like ride my bike and exercise (in a moderate and healthy way,
obviously). That I am able to work with the horrible thoughts I have every day about my body, and take a breath and tell myself that I am a valuable human being no matter my size, is amazing. When a thought comes up, I think that I'm aware of where indulging those thoughts gets me, and it's pathetic - it is not worth it, it's ridiculous how not worth it it is - and that I am not interested in becoming a statistic. The other morning I woke up before my alarm. I wake up really early to have some time to myself before program anyway, 5:45 on the dot daily, so I woke up at 5:00 yesterday, ha...but I was happy about it, because it was raining. I made coffee and sat on the balcony with my coffee and my cigarette, and I listened to and watched the rain, and I noticed the stars, and the noticed that I have the mental and emotional space TO notice something like the stars again. And I felt grateful, and happy. I cannot remember the last time I felt confident in saying I truly felt "happy". I could say "grateful", or another positive, but I never trusted that I could really be experiencing "happiness". And it had been a long time. I feel empowered...and proud to be who I am. I really like the person that I am, today. I'm a really good person. I can be funny. I'm deeply compassionate. In a lot of ways, I'm a rare type of person.
I'm becoming an adult - every morning now, I listen to and read articles on NPR :-P...
I didn't want to come to ERC, but had nowhere else to go. I was so alone...but so hopeless. I had no space in my brain that believed in the least that I could recover. My eventual death from the disorder, or, more likely I thought, from suicide, was fact. Today I found a little notecard my first therapist (I started at the "Evergreen" location, was there until six weeks ago - hard to say goodbye to my therapist there, but they don't have step down levels of care there so now I'm at "Pine" - yes, they're all tree names)...anyway, her name is Kelsey, and I love her deeply. She would write little notecards for me to carry around. On one side of this one, it says: "I will not get better". I don't think we had a single session where I didn't say that to her. On the other side of this notecard, it says: "Can I give myself some space from this thought?" Honestly, though, I sent Kelsey an email today telling her that I feel hope, and I know she'll be shocked, and ,happy and proud. Not a single session where we didn't spend half of it talking about how hopeless I felt, and where I didn't have to promise not to hurt myself. Because all I wanted was for the pain to end. I did not believe that it would. I stayed alive solely for my mother and my father, because I love them beyond belief, and I didn't want to break their hearts. Today, I'm alive for me. For them, too, and all of the people I love, but...for me, too.
In eating disorder treatment and recovery, specialists/the professionals insist that slips are a part of the process. It's a little different from drug addiction, in that you can't just stop using the substance; you have to eat, multiple times daily. I won't lie to you because I no longer lie, I have had some slips some nights. But I pick myself right back up the next morning, and I no longer think that a slip means a full on relapse, nor do I use a slip as permission for a full blown relapse. For that matter, I am completely uninterested in relapsing. What an unbelievably miserable existence...my eyes have opened so much and I recognize my privilege, how lucky I am in so many ways, but I no longer feel guilty or angry with myself for suffering from a mental illness. I have compassion for myself, and patience. No bullshit, don't get me wrong. For a long time I used my illness to get attention. I was proud of being so sick. But somewhere in the last few years, that stopped. I was just miserable, legitimately, and all I wanted was to be well but I just didn't believe I could be. It was terrible.
I wanted to tell you all of these things...because I love you, because I know you'll be proud, and in some ways it's like showing off success to a previous teacher, haha :)...you were my sponsor. _____, I am finally getting it, or at least I suspect so. Isn't that incredible? I know this email is long as hell. Hope you didn't mind too much.
I love you more than I'll ever, ever be able to say. More than you'll ever be able to understand. I miss you. When you "liked" my status on Facebook today, I cried, because I was so happy and grateful you felt comfortable enough to have interacted with me in some way. I just adore you. I'm so proud of the human that you are...I know you have your own story, that your life might have gone so differently. I'm so grateful, so happy that it didn't. I'm blessed to have met you.
Love you always, and thank you for reading this thing. I hope someday we go out to lunch or coffee and laugh and cry and smile together.
Always loving you,

Sofia

It really is amazing to notice all of these differences in myself. I'm self conscious about sharing so much in this blog because I don't want to sound like I'm self absorbed, or like I'm "showing off", but I have met a lot of people along the way throughout all of these treatment stays and those who know me will know what a difference this is; I'm hoping they find some hope in that. I'm hoping to provide hope for those of who you feel hopeless today; whether it's been two months or twenty years, there is always, always hope. When I used to hear that, I thought it was bullshit. But it isn't...please hold on, for another minute, another hour, another day. Hold on. Don't give up. Don't let yourself become a statistic.
I wrote an entry about one of my closest friends who did pass away from her eating disorder; Chrissie Steljes. I was looking through her Facebook photos today, thinking about her, and these two struck me:

[Side note: Since Chrissie's death, I've been determined to share her story. I believe it is my responsibility as someone who loved her to do so; her life was valuable, her life matters, even still - she was a remarkable, beautiful young woman, and she changed my life. I know that she would want to help as many people as possible, even though she's no longer here. I will always love her. I am blessed to know and love her family, and to have their support. To her family: Thank you for your love, your support, and your faith in me. I love you very much. Chrissie's life will not go unnoticed...she continues to change lives, and in that way, she will always be with us. Rest in peace, Chrissie.]

Today was up and down, but overall very successful in moving forward in my recovery. On Sundays, we don't go in until much later; most days we have to be at the van (they come and pick us up from the apartments we stay in, once we're at the Partial level of care) by 6:45 am, but on Sundays they pick us up at 9:15 am. So we have breakfast on our own. I was nervous about today last night; I knew I'd be up before my roommates, as I tend to wake up earlier than them, and I thought that as I'd gone grocery shopping the night before and had some (not a ton, but some) food around that I might be tempted to binge and purge. Before I turned out the light last night I wrote in my journal and used the coping skill of "Coping Ahead"; planning ahead. I've learned in this process that it's much more effective for me to plan ahead of time, and do my best to keep my mood level by doing things that keep me feeling more stable overall than it is to try to deal with an intense urge to use a behavior in the moment. I'm not saying I don't have urges still or that planning ahead of time will eliminate all urges, because I definitely do still have them, and they're very uncomfortable and hard to deal with, but coping ahead as much as is possible is probably the best plan and does really help to decrease the regularity of those impulses. Impulsivity is the most difficult thing I'm dealing with at the moment; when I feel impulsive, or act on impulse, there's very little space between the initial urge to do the behavior and the actual behavior. As another side note, something I find helpful lately when I feel like binging and purging is getting myself into the shower. It sort of removes me from the environment and gives me time to catch up with myself, and to think. I'm also wet by that point so if I want to go and do the behavior it takes more time to get myself into a position where I can, so I'm more likely to think it through.
I ended up doing very, very well this morning; I made myself something I really enjoyed, and I didn't end up have any urges at all. I've also noticed that by eating foods I truly enjoy and going into the preparation of my meals and/or snacks as mindfully as possible, I'm much less likely to want to overeat or binge - because I'm actually satisfied.

It's definitely been a ride. I'm getting tired and want to read a bit before bed, so I'm going to go, but I'll write again. Thank you so much for reading, and if you are suffering as well, please give yourself some time. Be patient with yourself, and try to be compassionate and kind to yourself. Don't shut yourself off from the world; I know that it was love, and my connections with others that I loved, that kept me going when I didn't think I could or had no other reason to. I know that I often thought that even if I DID recover someday it wasn't worth experiencing the pain for so much longer while I waited, that I should end my life to end the pain. I do not think that way anymore. I am so grateful that I didn't kill myself, and that I held on to get to this point. There's a long way to go for me, but I've come very far, and the little things - as cheesy as this sounds - are worth it to me...but more than even the things themselves (like the sound of the rain, or watching the sun rise, or the moon and the stars...) - more than even that, it's being able to experience and enjoy them, knowing that I was so desperate for so long and did not believe that I could. The miracle of the ability to change. It feels amazing.

Give yourself a chance. Goodnight.