I remember when I was very sick and it was the first summer home with my eating disorder; I had a nightmare that I was sitting beside a HUGE mountain of chocolate - chocolate cake, bars, pastries, etc. and I ate it ALL. At this time my body was in starvation mode. I was literally starving to death and when this happens your body has some strange ways of trying to protect itself. Not only does it take from fat deposits, muscle tissue, and bone marrow to survive but your menstrual cycle stops and you start noticing some very strange things that you think of as being just "weird" at the time. Heart palpitations, head rushes, passing out, shortage of breath, inability to stay asleep at night or awake during the day are some of the things that you would dismiss as being weird, but are actually very serious health concerns. On top of all of these things, your mind starts to play tricks on you. You become obsessed with food. I dreamed about food. I would read menus and grocery flyers to look at the food that I had no intention of eating, but couldn't get myself to stop. When I dreamed about the chocolate, needless to say I got up and weighed myself immediately and barely ate anything the next day.
I was beginning to warm up to chocolate. I would drink chocolate milk or hot chocolate and would occasionally have chocolate chip somethings. I had never made the jump to chocolate cake - it was one of my biggest fear foods. I didn't like being in the same room as chocolate because even the sight or smell made me anxious.
Last weekend was my roomies birthday and we all gathered at her apartment to celebrate. I call her roomie because she was my roomie in first year, but she's the best roomie I've ever had by far. She will always be my roomie even now when we don't live together anymore.
 |
| Me and the birthday girl |
Anyhoo, it was Nicole's (roomie's) birthday and we gathered to celebrate. Our friends had bought her a chocolate cake and offered me a piece. Earlier that day I had been thinking about how I would handle it (as I always do when I know situations like this are coming in the near future) and decided that I would politely say no and continue to visit with my friends like normal like usual. When I got there however, I had a breakthrough.
I used the same mindset that I usually do, I just had to concentrate a bit harder. I am here to celebrate my friends birthday and have fun with my friends. What I eat is simply fuel, no more no less. This fuel is delicious and I wanted some, so I had a piece of cake! I figured, I've been on a roll the last little while eating pizza, muffins cookies etc., why stop there? Why slow down and lose steam? And so I ate the first piece of chocolate cake in over three years and it was delicious! My friends AJ, Ashley and Nicole were all ecstatic and had our own little party within a party. It was a triumphant day to say the least!!
 |
| AJ, Nicole, Ashley and I |
I am so excited and scared at the same time. I can't wait to keep moving forward but it is also scary as hell. I've come this far though, I can definitely keep going!!
No comments:
Post a Comment