A few days ago I was asked to be a recovery speaker at a treatment center. I am so excited because the date is very soon but also kind of nervous because I have so much to say and yet so little. On one hand I started listing off all of the points I want to go over when I talk but on the other I really ultimately feel there is a way to sum it all up into a sentence. I don’t exactly know what I feel like that sentence would be. Something that I know wouldn't actually sum it up or change anything, but something like:
Even if you aren’t sure, just start taking steps-small steps-because the further you get from the ED, I GUARANTEE you the further you will get to finding your true self and the life you will love and deserve, and the further you will want to be.
And the best part is that you will believe you deserve it. And if you feel like you have been doing well and it hasn’t been anything special, you weren’t as far from your ED as you thought. I thought I was pretty ok for awhile but didn’t realize how much better I could still be until I kept trying to move forward even with the small slips backward. People say you can always go back to your ED so you might as well try recovery. I never heard that and wanted to try to recover to see if it was true. It didn’t inspire me to try or try harder. I liked my ED. I felt like it gave me many things I never had. But I still thought about that phrase. For some reason I could and still can hear it in the back of my head when I want to give up. And I know that it is true now. If you get far enough into recovery you will NEVER want to go back. This doesn’t mean you won’t, by any means, just that you will experience something only those that get up from their rock bottom and keep fighting can. Maybe it’s freedom- I don’t know or maybe just relief from letting go of everything I had been holding on to. I know now that I can go back to my ED any time I decide to. I can let it destroy me as much or more than it did before. And sometimes I still think about it. How much easier it would be, how much I could numb out and be comfortable doing what I have been doing for a long time. I know how to live in my ED, it’s living life that I don’t know how to do. So I figure I’m going to keep trying because every time I get a little further I am more able to consider the ability to survive without my ED. It is still a daily struggle, but it’s been slowly getting easier to wake up every day and decide not to go back- as much as I want to sometimes. Every time I think about living again with my ED, I get the feeling that it wouldn’t be the same. It wouldn’t give me the same things it used to, and I wouldn’t have the energy to let it. I honestly don’t think I could get through that again. I’m exhausted just thinking about it. Once you have experienced life free from addictions you will never be the same person.
You will never get the same things from the addictions.
You will never think you are truly happy in the addictions.
You will never truly remember how bad it was- which makes it hard not to go back.
You will never WANT to stop fighting- even if you do.
You will never see things the same way, have the same people in your life, or have the same beliefs about yourself.
Whatever happens, I will never be the same person. And I cannot describe how nice that is to know. I may slip but I will do anything to keep myself from going back to the places I have been.
YOU CAN’T ALWAYS GO BACK. Which is what is amazing about the process.
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