Group Therapy....

Group therapy is very important to my recovery personally. It's really great, I have group therapy lead by my therapist at my outpatient treatment and I have regular sessions with my therapist one on one. Every time I leave group I leave with new knowledge about myself and recovery in general. Today I told the group how I had relapsed and I learned a lot of things.

     I believed I was losing control and so, I was more willing to practice my eating disorder behaviors. I am a very self critical person and a perfectionist. These are two things that will not work in my recovery. I need to be willing to make mistakes and accept them at face value, it was a mistake okay it's done now what can I do to get back on track. Instead of the OMG I made a mistake, I'm a failure, I'm not strong enough, I suck at life, OMG Why? why? Why? My therapist told me to stop asking why, it does not matter, what matters is that I move on. If I focus too much on why I made the mistake it's going to keep me stuck. Instead of asking myself why and looking for an answer I need to just let myself be curious. There is not always an answer for everything.

I'm a control freak...this is one of the main reasons I developed an eating disorder. I need to have control of something so why not control my food? In life when I feel I have no control over things I immediately act on behaviors to get a sense of control in my life. Instead of trying to control everything I need to take everything as it comes, do what I can do and not worry about the rest. I tend to stress myself out, by my own expectations of how things need to be done. This is from my perfectionist side. I don't allow myself to screw up, but in life people will screw up, it's just a part of life. I have to train myself to allow screw ups, learn from then and move on. I tend to beat myself up relentlessly, until I believe I am no good.

All along I thought one day I'll be recovered and I wont need therapy etc anymore. Well today my therapist and group helped me realized, I'll never not have an eating disorder, I'll never not be "in recovery", it will get a lot easier with time, but I'll always have an eating disorder that I will need to stay healthy and keep myself from acting on the behaviors. Some people do get rid of the symptoms and urges, but others do not. I don't know what the cards hold for me, but this was a very hard truth for me to come to. I'm so sick of dealing with this every single day at every meal. I just want to be "normal" whatever that is. I don't want to have these feelings and struggles anymore and I thought one day it would all go away. I sat and cried as they explained. I guess I had myself fooled. Imagine being told you were going to have a disease the rest of your life, well that's how I feel. I guess like a diabetic will always have to watch what they eat and take meds. I'll have to keep going to therapy, and keep a healthy mind. I'm sure one day it will be a lot easier, but the fact is that certain life's struggles could bring about a relapse so I have to be on my A game to prevent that from happening. So anyways that was a really hard truth, but I'm just going to accept it and move forward in my recovery.

I feel like I've just been rambling, but I hope you get something out of this post. Thanks to all my readers. Have a blessed night! :D