"Looking up from underneath,
Fractured moonlight on the sea.
Reflections still look the same to me,
As before I went under."
I've been down, and I've come back up, yet it all kind of looks the same. Yes, I am changed. I don't look the same...but the world around me has not changed. It is all rotating and moving and circulating the same as before I went under, so to speak. I just came home for the night, and like it has been over the past 4 1/2 months, there is a familiarity with my house that I associate with being sick. I first noticed this when I went on pass for the first time. Frozen yogurt. Seems harmless, right? It happened to be the frozen yogurt joint that I ate at after a spree of not eating much of anything right before admitting myself to laureate. Or there was the trip to Starbucks with my friend where we sat at the same exact table as I sat on the morning I stopped to get coffee on my way to laureate, barely able to see straight and function enough to drive on the icy roads. The grocery store, target, the mall, riverside, wallgreens, the pizza place, the breakfast place, and many other local hangouts bring back memories of being sick and miserable. I can't seem to escape them. My house has been the worst offender of all. Everything about it screams "sick." The way I left my room is a complete disheveled state makes me cringe when I come back each time. I know I need to just tackle it and clean it up but it seems like such an overwhelming task. And God only knows what I will find hidden in the cracks and crevaces of my desk and dressers. The stairs remind me of the countless hours I spent sweating away while no one was home. The top shelf of the refrigerator still remains bare sans boost and orgain. And clothes are strewn everywhere. Clothes of all sizes. This is particularly hard because 95% of me knows I need to just get rid of them and start fresh but there is that small 5% that thinks it important to hold onto them "just in case." So there is the constant fight of what to do with these mass piles of clothes laying around staring at me. Yes, my room, my house, and my life need a makeover. Change needs to happen in order for me to begin to forget the sick memories and form new, healthy memories. I can't form new memories and fuse them with the sick ones...it just doesn't work that way for me. I have to push the old ones out.
Not only are my surroundings the same, haunting me and taunting me, but people are the same. This is probably the hardest to deal with. I knew this would be the case. People don't change just because I do. I have learned to adapt but others have had no reason to change and adapt so they are as they are and I have to learn how to still be okay with that. This involves setting boundaries and speaking up for myself, something that doesn't come naturally to me. I've been practicing this skill, little by little, and so far I've gotten good feedback, but it doesn't make it any less scary.
Lastly, I feel the same as before I went under, minus some much needed physical change. Yes, I have grown and learned and changed, but I am still me. Leah Beth. I am still here, trying to figure out what to do with myself. I am still clueless as to where my interests truly lie. I am still wandering through life, hoping that the pieces will finally start to fall into place. Was all of this worth it? I certainly hope so. Now I guess I just wait and see.
Things certainly look the same, but I guess that they are not the same. Or maybe the are the same, but I am not the same. Everything is right where I left it, but I am not where I was when I left. I will continue to wade through this life, making new memories to replace the old memories, and slowly but surely I will create a new tapestry.
I SO love this post. First of all, I relate to being haunted by memories associated to certain places. "Oh, this is where I used to..." It seems like everywhere in my life has some memory associated with it from my illness, and they jump out when I'm innocently trying to do something else. Also, as far as self-discovery, I sometimes wish I could just shout "HOLD ON" and the whole world would stop moving so I could analyze it or make a pro-con list or figure out what I'm supposed to be doing but the whole time I'm trying to figure things out, time just keeps going forward and now all of a sudden, I'm done with college and I feel like I still belong in high school.
ReplyDeleteAll of that being said, I KNOW you have changed. You may feel the same because you are still the same essential LB. (And that is a good thing, because you are an awesome person.) So really, maybe it's more important to say you've grown. You have progressed and evolved, moving seamlessly into a freer, healthier version of yourself, rather than a simplistic shedding of the "old you" and making up a "new you" from scratch. Does that make sense? I think there is a continuity in us but also a tremendous capacity for growth. We hold the past within us, but we are not the past. You will make new memories, and you will grow into your new, healthy life. I think sometimes we expect big, quantitative changes like coming out of treatment to give us a quantum leap in our lives, but sometimes change is so gradual that we barely notice it until we look back and realize how far we've come.
Now I'm rambling, and I apologize, but I want to share how hopeful I am with you because you've worked hard and I know you'll make it and find it worth it. Rock on, sweet girl.
No great advice. or hopeful stories. but i think this is a good topic. issues that is not treatment does not prepare you for. I have learnred in the past few years of being on my own that no moatter what happenes in life,,, good, bad, life changing,the days go on people move on and forget or puah the big life advents out of there head. and go backb to there fimilur day to day ruteins, You can change for the good and work your butt off to get to a good place but yoiu can'expect that that will effect anyoneles or the way that life goes. and get out of tulsa... no matter what u will ( anyone who was not living there before
ReplyDeletetreatmenrt will end up back... i mean why else why else stay there?? ED friends who just make ur ed act out or the attenchen from ppl at the tareatment place who make commemnt about wt anf how bad your doing even when they have no idea about what id soing on whit your live but want money sooo trigger you to relape. I do no belive u will make it if you stay around ed world where u fell like peopld are juging or something even if they wouldn't do that, where u don't remember the bad times of bulimia but all the times your were "sick" and 'alsmost died from not eatng' u need to know that it will go back to thwe shameful, emberersting, out of control, discusting bulimia that u seem to forget about or only hear u talk about it once . I know that if u want u can recover,,, an¥one can if that what they want for them-selfl. but if its just to make people happy it wont work. U have to decide that u want food, and you just eat it ans go on... but u have to want that not for some shrink or friend. ok not sure what the point was..
i bet this does not make any since... kindof out of it
wow, i can't even really make sense of this comment...sorry about that. i sort of get where you were going with it but not really. let's see, first of all, i've only ever struggled with the bulimia part of the ED in high school, secondly i'm working on making new memories here in tulsa and believe i can. i have some great friends who are in recovery and will be wonderful and supportive. third, aside from seeing a dietitian related to laureate, i tend to have very little contact with this place once i am gone. so i think i will be fine. but thanks for your opinion. i'm pretty sure i know who wrote this and i really hope that you take the advice being suggested to you and get the help you need!
ReplyDeleteglade u understood that, i'm not sure what it was tring to get towards, not that any of that has anything todo with me, or / and how wonderful it is to read that u are still working hard and doing all you can to beat this crazy way of life we seem to have. I know u can beat this and overcome all that god puts in front of u.
DeleteAnd i hope u don't let the evil people (as seen above) get u down, u know god is with u. All u can do for people who are so lost or hurtful is pray.
praying for the best