Struggling
I debated whether or not to write this entry. I wanted to appear like I had it all together and that I was strong for my readers, but I don’t want to be dishonest to them either.
I’m struggling. Not with my abstinence or my food, but with my body. I feel like I’m gaining weight all the time. I don’t want to shop for clothes again. I don’t like the “softness” of my curves. I want to rigidness back and the sharpness of bones. I don’t want all this cushion.
I wanted to screw it all. I felt trapped. I FEEL trapped. I feel trapped by the OA program. I feel as if I’m no longer allowed to do what I want with my body because I’m in this program. I’d rather restrict than exercise — it’s the only way I know how to manage my weight and control my body.
I was up until around 5:00 AM crying about my body and reading to run away from it. I never, ever thought I’d be this weight and I never, ever thought I’d look this way. I used to look down on people who looked like the way I do now.
I can’t figure out what is triggering me. Is it just my weight? Is it the fact that I’m trying to get off my medication? Is it because we are in so much debt I want to scream? Is it the fact that I don’t have a job right now? Going back to school? Dealing with my step-kids? Not cleaning the house? Etc., etc., etc.
So that’s where I am today. I’m still doing my three meals a day. Still working with my sponsor. That’s all I can do right now.
Emotional
I did some crying at Sunday’s OA meeting. I was quite embarrassed as I usually don’t cry, but I guess that’s what I needed to do. The reason for my emotional moment was my body. As you’ve read in past entries my will to exercise just isn’t there and my weight has steadily been going up. At least I think it has – I don’t weigh myself but the flat stomach I used to have just isn’t really there anymore. I don’t want to go a THIRD time to get clothes that fit me. I’m tired of having to buy bigger sizes! I just want to maintain for once.
I don’t weigh myself at the doctors but she slipped and told me how much weight I’ve gained since last year. That just…crushed me a little.
My sponsor told me that this is the weight God wants me to be at for a reason.
And I was so jazzed to exercise once I did my Wii Fit thing. I just have to suck it up and DO IT. I have to look at it as a “for today” type thing rather than an everyday type thing. Because Lord knows I do not want to have to exercise the rest of my life in order to maintain this weight!
Currently working on Step 11. Almost done!
Exercising. Sigh.
My husband bought me an exercise game/dvd for the Wii because he was tired of hearing me say, “I need to exercise.” and not following through.
So I did it. It gives you a 30 day challenge with your own personal trainer. You do all sorts of exercises ranging from running in place to inline skating. Everyday the exercises change and get a bit harder based on what your body can handle. You can customize everything to your taste and ability. I have to admit it was great and not as bad as I thought, especially because they help you each step. And what’s crazy is that they know when you are half-assing it. I was supposed to run in place and stopped and my character on the screen stopped. Or I ran slower than I was supposed to and in big, flashy letters it says, “TOO SLOW.” It’s so funny.
But the entire 30 minutes of exercise was pretty much a waste because the day after I could barely walk! My calves hurt SO incredibly bad. I’ve never been in that much pain before after exercising. This was two days ago and it still hurts to walk. I guess that’s what I get for not being active for years. I can’t exercise again until my calves feel better. And that sucks because that first day was for nothing! Ugh.
But at least I’m motivated now. I really want to get toned and in shape.
Surrendering
Last night I shared at the meeting about all the positive things that have happened since surrendering. In inpatient I didn’t want to let go of my anorexia. I wanted to keep it and to cherish it and to adore it. I wanted it to work for me because nothing else could. I wanted that crutch because life without it seemed so hard and scary. But at the same time I was so miserable and sad. I was tired of trying to fight recovery. It was exhausting and I couldn’t do it to myself or to my family.
So I decided to surrender. And it was HARD.
I had to go against everything I ever believed in, which wasn’t much. I didn’t want to believe in a Higher Power. I didn’t want to eat all my meals. I didn’t want to get fat. I didn’t want to be normal. But everyone was telling me how if I just surrendered I would slowly come out of the deep mess that I was in. And they were right.
By surrendering I didn’t have to worry anymore. I didn’t have to worry about what I ate, or how much weight I gained, or what others thought of me, or what others were doing wrong. I let a Higher Power take care of that, and even though I didn’t have a strong sense of an HP in the beginning, I had enough faith to get me through those hard times in inpatient. And as I started to see the positive affects of surrendering, my faith started to building slowly. And each day it got bigger and bigger.
Enough positive things have happened in recovery to make me have 100% faith in this program.
All you have to do is just let go.
God Grant Me June 3rd
“To live is to feel oneself lost.”
-Jose Ortega y Gasset
Today’s Action
Today I will think of a time in my life when I felt lost. What was going on at the time? How did I find my way? I will write three sentences about the experience. If I could do it over, would I do it differently now? How?
I definitely felt lost when my house burned down. We lost everything except the clothes on our backs and I had no idea what we were going to do. But because of that I found my way back into Overeaters Anonymous and have been going ever since.
If I could do it over, I wouldn’t change a thing. That event was a blessing in disguise, and although I lost a lot of things that were valuable to me, I trust that my Higher Power was guiding me then as he is now.
Trying to Start New Meetings
A while back I tried to start some new OA meetings in my area. But because of financial reasons we believed we’d have to move. However, things turned around and we got to stay here. So now I’m planning on starting some OA meetings. I wanted to start a regular OA meeting and a Young People’s meeting. I have all the material and I’ve organized everything but I need a meeting place! I had one and talked to the people who would set it up for me, but that was a while back. I emailed them again but they haven’t gotten back to me. I want to start them so bad!
And let’s talk about some Step 10 work. Sometimes I feel like I should only do a Step 10 when I do something “wrong” during the day. But even if I have a “good” day and feel like I don’t need to do recovery work, it’d be nice to just sit and think of how GOOD my day was. It will help me be grateful for what I have and to not take things for granted. And sometimes when I really DO think about my day, there are certain things I’ll realize I did that maybe weren’t that great. Whether that be judging something or napping too long or not eating as healthy as I could.
For example, yesterday I was very unproductive and lazy. I slept longer than I should have during a nap and my food yesterday was sloppy. I was too lazy to make real meals so I whipped out microwavable things. And my food schedule was all off because I woke up late so dinner was barely a healthy meal! I made myself a quesadilla and a bowl of yogurt. BUT….I dropped the bowl of yogurt halfway through eating it and wasted all that food. I didn’t eat anything else because I wasn’t hungry but then got hungry around 9:00 PM. So I had a bowl of cereal when I should have had something with protein in it.
So yeah. Yesterday was just blah. Today isn’t that much better but I’ve made a commitment to not nap. And I’m trying to make my food a little less sloppy. I’ll have to make a trip to the grocery store soon. REAL soon, lol.
Thank You Top 100 Sober Blogs!
I’d like to thank the Sober Blog Directory for making my blog the blog of the month!
If you are looking for a recovery blog, definitely go there. There are so many wonderful bloggers blogging about their experience, strength, and hope. Hopefully you’ll find a little piece of inspiration. :-)
