Have you ever felt like you've somehow fallen into a 10 foot hole? One day you look around and realize just how deep you've gone and are surrounded by silent, lonely, desperate darkness. There are only shadows around you and the echo of your own voice, a voice you're not even sure you recognize. You try to find a way out, determined, you begin to climb only to fall. It doesn't take long to feel hopeless as you realize the impossible climb before you.
You know, it is easy to look at another person's "chapter 10" and compare it to your "chapter one", isn't it? This philosophy changed my thinking. How often do you compare yourself to others in a day, sensationalizing their desirable traits, focussing on all that seems perfect and effortless? After all, how difficult can it seem when they are living it before your very eyes?
I've been on both ends. It's no secret that I have my darkness behind me. I have been there! I have felt that desperate loneliness, as though not a soul could possibly understand my deep pain and torment. I remember truly despising myself to the point that nothing mattered, not my health, not my life. I just wanted to be beautiful, to be liked, to be desired and accepted. I went through deep depression, general and social anxiety, an extremely low self-esteem and sheer self-hatred, ruthless self-criticism, teasing, bullying, abuse. I suffered extreme binge eating and the only way I could control my emotions was with food, but I needed control in one small area of my life so desperately that I couldn't accept it. I had to purge. I had to rid myself of the filth.
Let's not stay here... you get the idea, right? You might look at my Facebook profile photo, my blog photo, my happy family and it may be easy to assume that it all came effortlessly, naturally and without pain and struggle. But that's far from truth.
One day, in the hospital for intense treatment, I realized that I had to make a decision. For MYSELF. Amongst all the chaos and unpredictability of life I had to make a choice to get better. It was only weeks before finding out I was pregnant with my first son, which only strengthened my resolve. I had to make the decision for MYSELF. That I would NOT spend the rest of my life this way. I did think about having kids one day, years down the road and I thought about my boyfriend whom I knew I loved with all my heart and soul and would marry one day (and I did). I did NOT want to mess this up by being so messed up.
So I made a choice. I took responsibility for my future and resolved to get healthy, inside and out, no matter what it took. I didn't expect it to be easy and smooth, no I knew better. I remember sitting there, forced to just exist as myself, with my FEELINGS, without my crutch and distraction of food. No cookies to distract me from my demons. I remember how deeply uncomfortable I felt, how time dragged by, how I just couldn't figure out what to do with myself and how awful it felt to just feel so crawly in my own skin. I wanted to make it GO AWAY, but that's what got me here in the first place.
No, it wasn't easy. Eight years later it STILL isn't easy. I make a lot of mistakes, I say and do the wrong things. Sometimes I feel like I'm a new person but these flashes of the old me can't help but break through the cracks in my skin. Sometimes I crack and crumble, I fall apart and I feel like it will never get better. But then I remember and realize just how far I've come.
It wasn't easy. It STILL isn't easy! I struggle with my brain every single day. Some days are better than others but it honestly feels like a constant struggle (I promise it's not, we just have that tendency to focus on the negative. If you don't believe me write down all the moments in a day you struggle and you'll not only notice it lessen over the weeks and months but you'll realize how many hours in a day you're "normal"). I still don't see an accurate reflection in the mirror, the reflection others see. It's a lifelong journey and you HAVE to accept this if you want to keep moving forward. There is no 12 week program or transformation miracle that will fix all your internal problems, the problems that drive every single conflict within ourselves. Just like alcoholism, consider it a disease. You gain strength and skills, you learn to cope and keep it at bay but must always be mindful of your demons. We all have them.
You see, we get so caught up looking at how far the top of that hole is, how high the mountain is we need to climb, and we completely lose sight of just how important every single step is to take us there. Without each and every little step forward we would never get there. If we don't get back up and try again, try a new approach, learn and figure out WHY it didn't work, we would never get there.
Do you see the significance of this seemingly simple decision? I'm not talking about just saying you'll do it, nor am I talking about finding all the tools first. NO ONE has all the tools frist, that's what falling is for! I'm talking about making that brick-walled, steel-strong, no doubts, sheer and utter soul-shaking decision that you WILL get better because you DESERVE to live better. Your CHILDREN, family, friends, loved ones DESERVE that role model, that life. NO one is lost, no one is hopeless. If they were then I would have been cast into the depths of the shadows forever.
Why not YOU? Keep fighting for it and I guarantee you will be out there one day telling your success story.
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