Humiliation Feared

During my counselling session the week before Christmas B told me that I was doing so well in recovery that actually, if she were to assess me right then, I wouldn't fit the criteria of someone with an eating disorder. Not that I was totally healed and ready to be done with the process ... but solidly in recovery where IT is the norm instead of ED. In fact I had gone 2 months without any slips!

I was surprised and a little confused. I didn't know what to think. Or feel. When I told Garron about it later that evening I found myself crying. Amazed that it could be true ... for 23 years I had doubted there would ever be freedom from ED. And now B was telling me I was almost there.

A little ED voice crept in and started asking questions: "Could that really be true?", "How are you gonna keep this up when B's not there to help you?",
"Do you even know why you want to be free?", what if recovery for you doesn't provide the weight loss (body balancing) you desire?", "could you keep going if you stayed exactly the same as you are right now?", "What if you tell people and they think that this means you will be without any struggles any more?", "what if they start demanding things from you because they think you should be able to start up all the things you cut out of your life in order to have time and energy to heal?", "How humiliating will it be if I tell people how well I'm doing only to slip up again?" ... it went on and on.

I don't remember any voice asking positive things like: "what do you want to do with this new freedom?", "what can you implement in your life to ensure you stay on track?", "Don't you feel great about this success?", "how should you celebrate this mile-stone?"

I felt leery about telling too many people. I was nervous about writing it on here ... seeing it in black and white ... I don't know what I thought would happen ... but it wasn't good.

At my next session, two weeks later, B asked me why I hadn't been posting very much lately. I knew that a lot of it was because I've just been so physically and emotionally (and mentally) exhausted. Any time I thought of posting I was overwhelmed at the thought of having to analyze myself or my progress, or ANYthing.

I admitted this to B. But there was also a growing feeling inside myself that I was nearing a kind of waterfall in the journey. I could try to swim back upstream to avoid the drop or I could surrender to the water and let it take me over the edge to freedom. Scary. I knew that the end would probably be rough and may get quite messy as ED got more and more desperate to hold onto me. And I didn't feel I was up for the ride. Also, I wasn't sure I wanted to be done with the process because I don't feel I've attained what I am after. Not totally. I HAVE gotten rid of a lot of destructive behaviours and thoughts, but there are still some threads of 'entanglement' that are lurking somewhere deep inside...undiscovered yet. I sense them but I can't define them yet. And that scares me a bit.