ED has been training hard

     Last night, I found that I had to cover up the mirrors in my house.  I'm looking at them with different eyes.  It was an almost instantaneous change, after which I could see no good.  Every flaw lurched out at me.  When my boyfriend affectionately touched my stomach, my breath got caught in my throat.  I knew he could feel how big and blubbery it was.  Certainly it had grown in the past few days (not that I have strayed from my food plan, eaten even slightly beyond fullness, or missed a single workout).  But I knew I was bigger.  Besides, I was practically bulging out of my shorts.

     They say that while we're working on recovery, ED is in the closet doing push ups.  Well, when I do pushups, ED tells me I have to do them with giant sand bags on my back, and keep going until my arms collapse under me.  You better believe he's been pushing himself just as hard while he's been cooped up in there, just biding his time.  I was getting comfortable in my recovery.  I'd settled into a routine, and ED knows I get bored easily.  ED knows I like things to be challenging.  I like to be pushed.  He knows that I don't know how to deal with drama or conflict, so he waited until all these outside circumstances were bearing down on me.  He waited until I started digging through the origin of my disease, and where my unhealthy ideas came from, and when all these things were fresh in my head, he jumped out and yelled "Remember that idea!  It was brilliant then, and it's brilliant now.  It's worked on other people, and it can work for you if you stop being so gullible and lazy.  You're the one who's sinking into mediocrity to make friends...giving up on your dreams just for some imaginary higher power.  You want a life?  Since when did you ever want that?  you tried that once, and got bored in a week.  You don't want a life.  you want to be exceptional.  Anyone can have a life.  You can be the best.  You have something extra.  And you want to waste that?  And for what?  Look at all this crap that is going on!  You don't even like having a life.  You have to worry about other people, and their time and their feelings, and what they think of you.  You're probably going to hurt them anyway, because you don't really care anyway.  You're only using them to get a stupid life you don't even want.  You're wasting your time on lazy mediocre "workouts" that you don't even like.  You could be spending that time training with some actual intensity on something that is functional, that matters, and that you enjoy, but no!  Lets spend our precious gym time stretching and doing physical therapy, and the freakin most boring techniques ever with a bunch of average people.  What would your old coach say?  This is disgusting.  You're not even trying.  I'm so disgusted.  Some people just don't care, and that's bad enough, but what you're doing is even worse.  You're deluding yourself- pretending you don't care to impress stupid average people who don't understand you.

     I hear him yelling, and everything he's saying feels right.  When I'm being ruled by my recovery voice, just one of these thoughts scares me, but today, I can't help but defend them.  My fear is that the recovery voice will overpower them and I'll forget how important that stuff is.  I know it's all my disorder.  The thing my sponsor said this morning that helped was that when we're in recovery, we're more effective at everything we do.  Of course I can argue that, (well, I guess it would be ED that would argue with that) but in reality, I think I've been almost as effective in this beginning phase of recovery as I have during the high points of my disease, and right now I'm building strength and momentum, whereas before in my disease, I could push really hard for a while, but it was quickly exhausting my resources.  I know that this will pass, and I will have peace and serenity again, and it's OK that right now that scares me more than comforts me.

     What am I doing?  Praying.  I'm praying to see what I need to see; to hear what I need to hear; to do what I need to do; to feel that strong connection to my HP so that I know when to push, and when to take it easy.  I'm taking a lot of contrary action.  Last night I didn't want to stop eating, so I put the food away.  ED told me the only way to fix me was to go to the gym, condition until my muscles trembled and my hands bled, so I went to a meeting instead.  ED told me that I had a million crucially important things that must all be done today.  I must spend 3 hrs at the gym this morning, go to another outdoor class, run errands, then be back at the gym in the afternoon.  So I came home after an hour and a half at the gym.  I'm going to take a nap.  He told me that since I didn't do my whole workout, I couldn't have my snack.  I ate my snack, because my food plan told me it was the right time.  ED is most powerful when I'm at my weakest, which is often when I'm sleep deprived.  ED can exhaust himself yelling for all I care.  I'll be sleeping.  later  : )