I leave for tulsa tomorrow afternoon and i haven't been so excited for something since I found out I was allowed to discharge...now, i'm going back on my own accord, happier, healthier, and more alive. Yet, returning to tulsa and visiting my Laureate team has me feeling pretty nostalgic. There is a twinge of sadness in my chest because I know that I am going to have to say good-bye, again, to the place and the people that make me feel so at home. I learned so much and grew not just physically but emotionally and spiritually there, and will be forever indebted to the people who helped me reclaim my life. I walked through those doors broken and bruised...my spirit and soul fractured from the harshness of a life i didn't even want to be living at all, and threw my hands up in surrender. It took all of three days for me to have my first (of many) breakdowns. I had spent a lifetime perfecting the art of disappearing, invalidating, stuffing, starving, holding on with a deathgrip to dreams and goals that were not healthy, and mostly hiding everything i am in fear of what the exposure would mean. I had destroyed my body, the one body i will ever and always have, to the point of needing a feeding tube, wheelchair, and endless days and months of nutritional and medical rehabilitation to recover. there were times when i wanted to give up, call it quits, throw in the towel...but i didn't. why? because i had some of the most amazing staff and peers supporting me each and every step of the way. they believed in me when i couldn't believe in myself. they fought for me when i didn't have the strength to fight for myself. they were my hope when i couldn't find anything to hope for or in. I walked through those doors thinking that it was my last shot...it would either work or it wouldn't, and if it didn't that would be fine because, frankly, i wanted to die anyway. but i had a tiny flicker of life left in me, and thank God i was able to hold onto that because it saw me through. slowly, painfully, i began to heal. i began to loosen my grasp on death, depression, and dead dreams and goals, and allow myself room to grow. i allowed myself room to discover who i was becoming, my true beliefs, my desires and aspirations. i allowed myself to trust again. the healing process is never painless. an open wound tends to become sore and inflammed shortly after the time of injury, and then it will begin to scab over. scabbing over itches, but if you give in and scratch it you only end up delaying the process. so you have to sit with the pain and itchiness. eventually, the wound covers over, the scab formed completely, and the scab will then begin to peel off, bit by bit. this process goes for new wounds, or old wounds that we pick open...during my life i tended to stuff and stuff, allowing those wounds to heal over, but not giving them the proper care. at laureate, they reopened all of my wounds, and I had to go through the painful healing process again. but finally, i have wounds that are carefully closed, and slowly fading into the vast canvas of my life. i cannot thank them enough for going through that process with me.
I wish I could go back and visit once a month...fill everyone in on the recovery process, laugh, cry, and talk about how i wholeheartedly believe change is possible, that one can be brought back from the edge. i have seen rock bottom, and with their help, i climbed up, and then climbed out.
So, heading back to tulsa leaves me with this twinge of sadness, but a positive sadness. I am grieving the loss of an eating disorder, the loss of the the person i once was, the loss of a team that knows everything about me and loves me regardless, and instead i am celebrating the person i am becoming, and the new relationship i can have as a woman in recovery, a survivor!
Thank you all for being there for me (if anyone even reads this haha!) and I love y'all sooooo much!
xoxo, LB
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