Diary

The light you fire every day…

Here I want to share a page from my diary when I was 6 months on my recovery path to freedom:

“I started to accept myself! I can’t believe it. Something clicked after 37 years of living on this planet. I don’t mean I have never accepted myself; I simply always wanted to be perfect. And now I’m looking at myself. I have a cold, runny nose, red eyes, 6 months in recovery, 4 years after a divorce. But, I’m becoming a normal eater; I’m being me. I like my appearance; I like my body, my hair, my runny nose. I cannot see anything I wouldn’t like. I eat healthily, don’t starve, I cook, I stopped bingeing and starving completely! Even my last slip was not significant and only caused by restricting; This means I’m still recovering just in case I forgot.

But no matter whether I put on weight or not. It’s me. Something clicked. It doesn’t matter what the number on the scale shows. I am learning to feel good each time I eat or not. I don’t stuff myself with food to feel bad.

I don’t starve my body to be super cooper skinny! What’s the point??

And my sexual desires fire up as well! – Ok, never mind that.

I enjoy my breakfasts; I love my dinners, rumbling in my stomach and the feeling of hunger. I like getting hungry, and I like feeling satisfied without jumping on more.

And – I’m not ashamed or scared or afraid of meeting people, of seeing old friends, of their judgments of what they think: do I look slim or too thin or too fat or too wide or too tall, or too short, whether my legs are both left or right, whether my hair is green or red. I do not care. Why? Because it is Who I am now and here.

No, I won’t mention how much I gained or lost. It’s not necessary; it’s not essential. I won’t say how I eat. The secret is here: I try to feel good about what I eat, and I try not to feel bad after a meal. I try to live before and after a meal in the same way.

But I also try to live my life as I wish, without guilt, frustration and saying I can’t! And I love what I have now without complaining about what I haven’t got. Does it matter?

If I lived in a cave, I’d be thankful for lighting a fire to keep me warm, a fire that would make my day!

I light up my fire every day, and I’m thankful for it. It doesn’t have to be a big fire. A little simple thing like a smile on my children’s faces is enough to make my day!

I believe I’m becoming me again.

Magic three-hour transformation!

I just wanted to remind you about the best-ever magic trick we have been living with before and during recovery! think of it when you recover. In professional words it is called a body dysmorphic disorder.

No one can be transformed from an Elephant into a Tinker Bell within three to four hours!

Why do you feel this way?

Trigger no 1: feeling full and guilty. Do you feel full after a nice meal? After a “big” meal maybe? And then you run to the mirror to see how massively big you became? Jumping on the scale: o gosh! That dinner made me look like an Elephant. That piece of cake, that one more slice of toast, that bit of ice cream transformed us magically, and it became many times a trigger to binge or starve even more!

I didn’t recognise that feeling full and satisfied after a meal is a normal and healthy response. I didn’t think that I was full and maybe even satisfied. I  didn’t feel happy (wow that cake was nice thank you). I felt guilt and a nasty transformation.

Trigger no 2: Hunger: Gosh I feel so hungry; I can see my ribs, I count my bones, I look tiny and jump to the mirror: yes, I look “good”, I am hungry, think – I am Tinker Bell!! I can eat something so I won’t faint eventually.

But the hunger made me binge, of course, then starve more, and the circle continued!

The truth is that we look the same. We are not tinker bells when we are hungry, nor elephants when we are full. We are being just ourselves, and that’s perfectly okay.

Why I wrote 3 to 4 hours? When I eat normally, I become hungry for approximately 3-4 hours. And if you keep that balance of not getting too hungry, you build trust with yourself during a meal. Even if you eat a “lot”, it is impossible to transform yourself from Tinker Bell to Elephant within 3 hours.

Slowly, step by step, your mind learns that there is no more starvation time. No more restrictions. Your body and mind become living with balance and peace. And your beautiful body will thank you for that one day.

Love and Light

Kasia