Recovery isn’t all that glamourous.

Some days I’ll be talking to my therapist and be thinking, “I really don’t need to be here,” “she’s saying everything I already know,” “I think I have the tools to move forward now,” and then days like today happen. I’m usually pretty good about utilizing the idea of perspective. For example, I am grateful for my body, for the fact it can run, it can move, it allows me to do my job. I can run 4 miles without getting winded, and 7 if I am bored enough and have nothing else on my mind. I can run for long periods of time and still have the energy to do an hour strength training session after that.

Im grateful for that. But it doesn’t change the idea that some days I just want to cry. I want to scream in frustration. I don’t want to exist. Now that last line is loaded, obviously that goes beyond my ED, it goes into my chemistry, depression and OCD too. The situation of our nation and my struggles with my own being really come together and create a storm of chaos in my mind.

My first initial post about living in a body that doesn’t show a disorder is similar to how I feel about myself today. Three to four weeks ago I started to eat the ‘appropriate’ amount of calories for my level of activity and for my body. Something I have never done because I know my hormones are out of whack, I don’t have a gallbladder and I have hypothyroidism. I’ve always ate less than 1200 calories because I know the fucking battle it is to even lose one pound once I’ve gained it. It feels like a one way track. And I’ll wake up, see I hit a new high, hate everything about my life and by the next week I’m just hoping that new high will be consistent and I won’t hit a new record. Every new high becomes a new normal.

Now all of that would be fine to me if I were lazy, if I didn’t work out, If I didn’t eat so damn healthy… but none of that is true. I run 4 miles 3 times a week, I lift 6 days out of the week, I eat very well, whole foods and for the last two weeks I’ve been on a plan from my dietician to help. I even started to intermittent fast, while achieving my macro goals every day – yet the scale doesn’t budge and I keep getting new ‘high’ records on my scale. DoNt lIsTeN tO tHe ScAlE lIsTeN tO yOuR bOdY. Yah, that’s also loudly letting me know that I’m gaining fat, somehow.

I think the most frustrating part about this recovery is I feel like I have to put up this facade that I don’t care about gaining weight any more… and that’s just not fucking true. I’m FRUSTRATED because I am doing everything right and the number keeps rising. I’m TIRED because no matter what I do my clothes get tighter, my fat keeps loading on, and the number keeps increasing. I upped my cardio because I hadn’t had access to the gym but now I do [I even run with a mask on], I stopped fixating on calorie numbers and started to just look at protein to make sure I was healthy, nothing works. The most destructive element of this is of course my OCD. Now, not just the lack of control is harmful – but also the hypersensitivity I have to these new rolls accumulating on my body. I hate it. I absolutely fucking hate it. I can feel every tight mark from my clothes, every overlap when I sit. I understand it’s normal, I’ve always had it, but not like this.

My dietician did order me some bloodwork the other day, in which, she thinks a lot of this is hormonal – which isn’t a surprise. For decades men have been telling me to eat less, which got me into an eating disorder, but I would always remain at a weight they couldn’t break and they thought I wasn’t ‘trying hard enough,’ but in reality it was just my hormones. So we’ll see where that goes, I really hope it gives me some answer and not just empty hope that there is something to make this train stop. Because If I could deal with the hormonal element I honestly could stop worrying about food, about the constant panic of my actions of having a little bit more sugar, or just maybe I could start loving me as I am, as I exist, without worrying about my every move. The problem mostly is I don’t know how to control what’s happening to me. And although I’d like to believe the theory of ‘your body is just going to end up where it’s supposed to be,’ I find it bullshit and I don’t believe in it at all. But I have reached a breaking point today of why fucking try- nothings helping and nothing is preventing me to randomly become 250 pounds even when I run excessively.

This is my last week to really have a break. Josh and I are in the process of boxing up our house, and moving to a new house we purchased. Along with that, my college kids start on Monday, and I didn’t think we’d be moving until the end of February so I booked a ton of shoots for this month [LOL], and now I am really swamped between painting our house, teaching, moving, and shooting & editing. When I am extremely busy it’s easier to be more forgiving to my body, to me skipping a work-out, or not eating perfectly but my mental health for the slow times decreases. While I’m on this break I am moving less which is actually detrimental to my OCD and hypothyroidism but I have more time to journal, write, reflect, read, and grow my internal self. Which is more important? Why can’t I find a balance?

I feel like hiding. I don’t want to wear normal clothes in fear of how I feel in them. I want to cover my face and my body. I want to pack myself in one of these boxes. I try to remind myself that there are significantly worse things in this world to face, and significantly worse things going on right now, but today it’s just fucking hard.

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