Tuesday, August 11, 2015

Dark Times & Feelings

Well, I don't really know how to begin this post. If you follow my Instagram you know that I was in Texas for several days visiting my oldest brother, sister-in-love and niece and that for the weekend our estranged biological father visited. He left our mom and us when we were 4 and 2 and they divorced. Since then my mom (she remarried to my dad who raised us and I have two more brothers) always tried to keep us in touch with him and make sure we visited him, etc. And although he didn't deserve this in my opinion, she never spoke poorly of him or allowed us to. Anyway, as we grew older we realized that without Mom dialing his number for us, we probably wouldn't talk at all since he rarely initiated contact. Fast forward to now and I have not seen this man in nearly a decade, since my grandfather died. To make it easier I'm going to refer to him as BD. So BD arrives and he's non-stop talking about all these "special memories" of the days when we were a little happy family, blah, blah, blah... and I was becoming increasingly angry! Why? Because he left us! I mean he abandoned his family - his beautiful wife and children - before us kids were even old enough to start coding long-term memories, so NO, BD, I don't remember any of these stupid stories!!! And then I was angry that he couldn't sense my anger because he doesn't even know me! There was one point on Sunday night when he brought up something particularly triggering and traumatic for me. I don't want to go into detail about all of it, mostly because it would require that I type out so much of my life story and everything. 

Anyway, it's important to note this first:
During the early days of my eating disorder back in my teen years, purging was something I did. It was never a regular part of my eating disorder and I was never bulimic but I did, at times, purge. It always happened at my parents house, which is for a whole different post. I have not purged in at least ten years. I have not even considered purging. For me, since I began my recovery journey purging is one behavior that stopped completely and it's a line that I never thought I would ever think of crossing again.

Back to the weekend, on Sunday night, BD lied to my face about something that was extremely triggering and traumatic that I've been holding since my childhood. I got so worked up that I went to the bathroom for a few minutes alone and I actually thought about purging. This was a terrifying moment for me! I didn't do it. I didn't even try. But the fact that I seriously considered it, even though it was days ago still scares me. That was a dark moment.

I'm back home in California now. And I'm so blessed to have my wonderful fiancé who is so supportive and is here for me as I try to navigate my way through the aftermath of feelings after the weekend. I also talked with my therapist yesterday. It was really good! She told me that she's actually proud of me. She explained how all of the anger I feel is normal and that I'm just not used to these intense feelings because most of my life I have starved them away.I would be lying if I said I am not tempted to starve them away. The intense anger that I feel towards this man is quite uncomfortable. However, I believe the only way to heal is to feel it rather than get around it. So here I am. Feeling. It's raw. It's painful and it sucks. And ana wants me to starve it all away but I refuse to let her win, so I'll keep fighting.
Sorry for the dark post. But I promised authenticity.

To end on a positive note, being with this little sweet pea for 5 days was food to my soul! My niece is perfection! I wish I could bottle up her laugh, her smell and all of her babbles!

How have you dealt with some of your darker times during recovery?

XO

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