Recovery (or not)

So. Recovery. It's not really happening right now.

I've been trying to restrict these last few days, since I started CBT again, but looking back over my sheets I've had quite a few sugary coffees (fruit sugar, but still) that are probably cancelling out my efforts. And if I eat lunch in Hall I have at least some of the dessert, which again, goes against how I'm feeling towards food in general. Isn't it so frustrating when you're trying to restrict, but the few times when you do manage to eat mean that your weight doesn't really change, and you've got nothing to show for your emotional turmoil? I fucking hate it. Let's not beat around bushes here.

I had a dream the other night, just before I woke up, that I got out of bed and tried on my jeans and discovered I had lost loads of weight. Then I woke up, and it wasn't real. What a cruel dream for an ED sufferer to...well, suffer. I genuinely cannot express how much I wish that it had been real, how much relief I would feel if I had lost that much weight. That was a couple of nights ago, but I'm still upset over it.

The funny thing is, when I think about it, this is probably it. Recovery, I mean. I'm not intending to relapse after this course of treatment. You know sometimes you try at recovery, but know in the back of your mind that you don't really mean it? Well, this isn't one of those times. It's scary, so I don't think about it much, but I think this is actually it. Like, actually.

I'm so sick and fucking tired of being ill; I had the word 'ill' even. Partly because I'm physically ill so much of the time, no doubt as a result of how much I'm screwing up my body with the ED. So ill is a word I have to use a lot when describing myself. I hate the term 'ED'. I hate the word 'hospital'. I hate the word 'therapy'. But most of all, I hate being ill, in pretty much every way. This term, on top of depression and dear old ED, I've had a chest cold that lasted a week and a half, a stomach infection that's taken 2 and a half weeks, and I'm sat here right now with a headache that's been with me for a good 4 hours already and won't be shifted by Ibuprofen, caffeine or sugar. My body is fucked and my mind is exhausted. I've forgotten how to do life. How to exist without struggle. I can't even imagine it. My therapist asked me the other day what my feelings were towards being at a higher weight and being free of the ED. "What if being X weight means not having any of this?" (referring to the diagram that explains how my ED works). And I didn't have an answer, because I can't imagine it. I can't imagine being at a higher weight and being anything other than unhappy. In fact, I can't imagine being happy full stop. Even at a lower weight, I still worry and have to exercise extreme control over what I eat in order to maintain that weight; I'm never free of it.

So. This is it. This is recovery. It's not happening properly yet, but I'm doing what I've been asked to do by my therapist in that I'm filling out the bloody sheets, even if I haven't abandoned dieting as she also requested. I'm starting. It's fucking scary, but now that I'm on this road, I will not turn back. I will not.