Holidaze: Surviving The #Blessed Season With An Eating Disorder

gifffff tgiving

…Because, likely, if you have an eating disorder you love Thanksgiving- but hate Thanksgiving food.

Personally, I have no problem admitting I am the scrooge of Thanksgiving (okay, fine. And Halloween… Costumes and Body Dysmorphia just DO NOT fly with me no matter if I dress like a slutty nurse or a Pentecostal nun.)

Anyways…

Give me your pilgrims, your Indians, your Thanksgiving Charlie Brown VHS, The corporate Vacation Days, Family small talk, The sweet smell of doughy rolls-

But my God, keep your stuffing, your pecan pie, your cranberry sides, your corn pudding like 1000 feet away from me.

There are times I wish I could use a get-out-of-jail-free card on my eating disorder; Thanksgiving is one of them.

If it were up to me, I’d sit at the ”kid table” far far away from the buffet of food and play airplane while someone feeds me a spoonful of carrot mash alongside my cousin’s 1-year old.

Alas, recovery- however- doesn’t exactly approve of carrot mash (although it might just  be the ONE food item I actually don’t know the calorie count on…)

Anywho, despite my silent protesting- Thanksgiving feast occurs again- as it did last year and the year before etc., etc.

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11 Truths About That ‘One Time In Rehab’ Year 1- Where Are You Now?

One Year.

Year One.

Where are you now?

Where am I now?

What a complicated question that poses.

Let me start off by saying that not a day goes by that I don’t think of my experience in rehab.

The crappy food- the stiff beds- the 5am wake up calls- not even the unshaven legs. (I’ve actually made a fairly terrible habit of that since…. much to the dismay of my partner)

One year later- and I sit here thinking how quite often that time period can change on a whim for me- from feeling so near- to coincidentally so far.

How are those girls? I get asked. Do you keep in touch with them?

Sometimes, I say.

Because sometimes, I do- and sometimes, I don’t.

Different ages, different backgrounds- together we felt so very close- sitting in those god awful strained therapy rooms. Our feet tucked under us- notebooks out and on our laps.

So close in the times we were forced to make “sand stress balls,” forced to count from 1-100 when we went to the restroom.

Close in the times we cried over a donut- laughed on the ground playing bananagram- laid on the couches.

Watched as our parents came and went. As Christmas and New Years passed quietly.

Sometimes, I can still feel Lilly’s head in my lap- braiding her hair like I did my friends in middle school.

Other times memories of it all come to me innocuously- on a plane coming back from Thanksgiving, a note falling out of a book.

“I’ll miss you always Linds. Come visit me when you’re out.”

Kenzie’s pink gel pen sparkling off the paper.

A year later, I still wish sometimes that I could go back to that place-

To the floral comforters, the narrow halls, the community room we always had to leave Jacy in because she wasn’t allowed to walk around with the rest of us.

A year later–

I didn’t know I’d look back at in this light-

But I do.

Continue reading “11 Truths About That ‘One Time In Rehab’ Year 1- Where Are You Now?”