Hungry for Change is an Eating Disorder awareness group that is doing a 31 Day blog awareness challenge.  I've decided to join in the blogging throughout the month of May.  The idea is to raise awareness on eating disorders by writing about an eating disorder recovery-themed topic that is chosen for each day of May.  This is an issue that is very close to my heart, though many people don't know that part of my life.  So I thought this would be a positive and challenging reflection, as well as a way to pass on what I have learned and continue to learn about the life that is Recovery.  So, here we go!  Day 1!  (I'm not so great at always keeping  up with these things, but I will try my best!)

 I write about eating disorders because...

Well, because I had one.  I spent way too much of my youth entrapped by lies and habits that were quickly leading to my death.  Blogging wasn't around back when I was a teenager (gosh, I sound old.  I promise I'm not that ancient!), which I think is a good thing.  I would not have had much positive to say.  So now I write about eating disorders because I know the beauty that is in Recovery.  I know what its like to feel enslaved to a way of life that can kill you, and I now know what it is like to live a life free from that.  I hope that by writing some of my story and sharing about my life in recovery, I can encourage others in their new lives.

Through this month, I hope to dig out some of my old journals that I wrote in so diligently.  When I was in my second treatment center, I went through 12 journals.  (I was there 3 months.  Guess I had a lot to say.)  I hope to encourage people who may be struggling with whether or not they want to choose recovery- because it is a choice.  Every day it is a choice.  It won't always be a struggle, but it is always a choice.  I hope to share the beauty and freedom I have found in forgiving myself and letting go of the idea of "perfection."

So.... that's it in a nutshell for today.  I'd love to hear from you if you're doing this blog challenge or if you're just reading along as I write this month!  If you want to know more about the challenge, you can see the other prompts here. 

I came across this article while reading a friend's blog... its about something called "Pregorexia." I've never heard that term before... have you? Well, the article basically talks about how some anorexics deal with being pregnant... overexercising, under eating, etc.

We had all kinds of therapy there... equine therapy, group therapy, body image therapy, family therapy, art therapy, recreational therapy... ANYTHING you could imagine! One week in art therapy, we were told to find a rock and bring it with us to the art room. We were to paint on this rock everything that weighed us down with our eating disorder... shame, guilt, pain, etc... So being the good trying-for-recovery-(ok, really at that time it was more like just-trying-to-go-home) patient that I was, I made my rock. When I was finished I set it up on a shelf, like we did with all our other products of art therapy, and didn't think much about it again.

Fast forward a bit to family week. What a breakthrough that week was! At the end of a very difficult but productive week of therapy with my family, my therapist took me and a fellow patient, Rose, to this place on the ranch we hadn't been before.... It was kind of in the middle of some cacti, up a small hill, in dirt of course (this was the desert!)... and there was a cross. Jim (my therapist) handed Rose and I our rocks that we had made weeks before in art therapy. The rocks represented everything about us with our eating disorders. We talked, and cried, and prayed... and layed the rocks at the foot of the cross. As we turned to leave, exhausted, part of me wanted to pick up my rock and take it with me... it was pretty, afterall... I'd worked so hard on it. Much like the person I was in my ED... I'd worked so hard to be the best at being sick. I knew what life was like with me and ED. It was safe. I didn't want to leave it behind. I didn't want to let go. It was scary to think of a life where I no longer had my old ways to fall back on. But that's what recovery is. In a lot of ways, recovery is like repentance. Repentance means we turn from our old sinful ways and follow Him and only Him. Recovery, for me, has the very same definition... turning from my old habits and coping mechanisms and following HIM... living my life FOR Him and by Him.

The cross is what enables us to lay down our 'rocks'... all of the sins that weigh us down. His resurrection is what gives us strength to not pick the rocks, our old sinful habits, back up. I'll never forget my experience at the foot of the cross, on a dusty hill in the middle of the Arizona desert. It was the symbolic start of a new life.