What it means to NEED. . .

I hate the fact that I need. Why? because I am quite comfortable in my belief that needing means I am (a) not independent and (b) imperfect, thus a failure. For those of you who do not have an eating disorder (or other MD/O), I defy you to read that and think it makes sense. It does not to me when I sit here and read the words. I am bright, so they say, and I realize those are damning beliefs. Nonetheless, they guide my actions. They are the all powerful assumptions I have made about my world. Substantiated? Not at all. . . Tenuous? Indeed. . . The challenge for me is to figure out how to change those beliefs.

Look, even as I type this I see only the intellectual Me. There is no emotion in this post. Simply intellect and CT. I am so segmented that emotion and intellect hardly seem to coexist. How to I make Me cohere??

A Day of Royal Confusion

Indeed, if anyone should read this blog, today was a day for the record books. I am standing on a border between the choices of recovery and the choices of illness. The days are composed of desperate attempts to move to recovery and royally ambivalent slips. I am also at a point where I can at least feel emotions, but have no idea how to deal with these feelings besides the ED/SI. It is so unpredictable and quite scary.

That is one of the most important things I need to learn: how to deal with unpredictability and fear. I know the world is quite complex and unpredictable, but I do not know how to handle such aspects of my existence. How do I reassure myself? And fear governs my existence to a very high degree. For example, tonight I could have stood up for my feelings, but I was too scared. Instead I chose the ED behaviors. I cannot be doing that if I want to heal. I do not deal with fear, I do everything I can to eliminate or squash the feelings. I eat; I purge; I starve; I cut.

I have also been noticing the very, very bad habit I have of using my BODY as a way of attempted communication as opposed to words. (Hence, this blog. . .) I use my body to say LISTEN, SEE, I HURT, I NEED. But at the same time I hate the fact that I need or that I hurt. I realize I ignore ME, but I hate me so much that I do not see the particular strength of listening to such a terrible person, such a terrible body.

My ungodly detachment in life, the mind from the body and emotion from reason just scream out for a way to mesh ME into one ME. It is not as though I have DID, but I have supported very specific aspects--reason and intellect--and hurt other parts--body and emotion. Bringing all my me's together again is crucial to successfully walking this road.

What it feels like to be "dead"

Have you ever felt dead? The feeling of not existing is one of the most disconcerting feeling I have ever experienced; life is literally passing YOU by and YOU are watching. Sure you are working or playing or whatever, but YOU are not really. There are no emotions involved. Just bland images in front of your face. The tougher part, getting back into reality. To know one is alive, truly alive, one must feel something. Amazingly effective is the feeling of pain. The vision of blood. I certainly do not want anyone to think this has any long term effect, because it does not. It is a short term fix. In a day, in an hour, in a few minutes, I might need to bring myself back into reality and repeat.

There is also the risk that I will have brought myself too far back to reality and will instead become petrified of what these emotions are and then get rid of them. Emotions are scary, believe it or not. Part of this journey is learning how to deal with, NOT ignore, suppress, or distract myself from, my emotions. The challenge is being okay with the idea of giving up the ED/SI and allowing myself to deal with emotions, fixing the possible comorbid mental disorders, and learning about ME again.

The road is long and rough, but totally I hope it will be absolutely worth it! (I am quite good at relapse if the ending is not something I appreciate ;))

Where I am and where I hope to go

Here I am, on a long journey I do not anticipate to end soon. I felt I needed a place to get out my thoughts and beliefs and they come much easier when I type. I created this blog as a more public venue to discuss all the things I go through. So, what is this journey anyway? I hope to travel this road all the way through recovery and I hope to not give up or give in to what I know best.

This simply functions as an introductory post to highlight the purpose of this blog. The blog was created for me, not for the public (although I hope the public gains some insight into mental illness by reading this). The blog was created for me to discuss all the intricacies of my thoughts and help me understand me. Hopefully then I will learn how to live a normal life, with healthy thoughts and feelings.