What Recovery Looks Like to Me (written: 2/1/12)

When I started this blog, I said that I would post some self-reflective writing from my time in treatment. When I started the blog, I did not realize that parts of me had a secret perfectionistic agenda, which was that part of me wanted to only post past writings in a chronological fashion. Somewhere, I hold the belief that hyper-organization (eg - chronological, alphabetizing, etc.) has the power to make me feel micro-accomplished, safe, and secure. This might sound arbitrary. But it's relevant because any time I notice an internal intention to retain a rigid pattern (eg - chronology :) ), I notice that the intention always protects a fear of being out of control. Part of the process of transforming old patterns into new ones is noticing how embedded the old patterns are (insidious and overt) in the details of our daily lives and thoughts. Now, I am not purporting that it is helpful to be overly analytical about every insidious desire to retain control. In our busy lives, we just don't have the time. We don't need to look under EVERY rock; we don't need to follow the whim of our wild minds all of the time. It's not helpful if the galloping mind lassos us and drags us helter-skelter behind her whispy stallion tail. No, it's must more helpful to have a sense of choice about when to be introspective and when to not be. Not to be in control of the mind, but to have the kind of relationship with the mind where the mind is not in control of you. Actually, a mindfulness practice is extraordinarily helpful with slowing down the mind, noticing what is present, allowing what is to be, and then going back with intentionality instead of compulsivity. Below, I have shared a wonderful introduction to Vipassana (insight/mindfulness meditation) meditation; it is narrated by Tara Brach. 

Just a few other pieces of information: Jack Kornfield is one of the best known western teachers of vipassana meditation. THIS IS a link to some of the written meditations on his website. Currently, there is a lovingkindness meditation, a walking meditation (which you could use for my last post!), a sitting meditation, a compassion focused meditation and a forgiveness meditation. They're all quite lovely and I recommend reading them over to bring a bit more tenderness inside.

I digress!! Even compassionately intentioned digressions are digressions...so, ok. Backtrack. I guess this is needless to say, but I will not be posting my past writings in a chronological fashion. Hopefully posting them won't be too confusing, I'll try to give a bit of context each time I post one of them. But, I was doing this meditation (the above video) and for some reason I just thought about a piece of writing I did about what recovery looks like to me.

The following is my agenda from 2/1/12 (When I was in treatment, we called these writings "agendas," so I'll call them agendas from here on out). This was written 10 months after admitting to treatment. I had been in the IOP program for about a month. It's been a year and 7 months since I wrote this agenda. I think that part of my assumption is that at different points in our treatment process, our perception of recovery shifts. So, I thought about revisiting this piece and see if my perception has shifted. Recovery is a labyrinthine process, as is our perception of recovery. Time flies. I'm curious to see if my perceptions have changed.

What does recovery look like to me?

I’m not sure that I can say. From my seat, it looks a little like a shape-shifting black hole, a simultaneous dream and nightmare. But, I feel grateful for this black hole because it encompasses all that I have yet to experience. If I were to look into my future and delineate the contents of my future in recovery, my brain would only be able to describe some hopeful construct of that which it has experienced thus far or that which could be theorized based on my perceptions of the world, the media, what I have read or witnessed in books, in art and so on and so forth. But what’s important is to note that all of this constructing from perceiving would exist through the eyes of a woman who has been exceptionally sick. So, I really have no frame of reference for what recovery will look like and I’m grateful for that. I don’t want a future constructed from my sick filters. I want something that else, despite how uncomfortable it feels.

I hope my life in recovery will look like something that I have never seen before because everything that I have perceived has seemed exceedingly depressing, anxiety provoking; I have perceived circumstances concerning alienation, abandonment, rejection, abuse and general cruelty between human beings but also my own self-recrimination and loathing. I was brought up to be critical and to break myself down and to be a perfectionist, and a person who becomes an expert at breaking themselves down is living to kill herself. So, I was brought up to kill myself and up until my process at (omitting treatment center name) I had no idea that this was the case. So, how can you ask me to describe what recovery looks like to me? You’re asking a bird to describe the natural world when she’s spent her existence living in a cage. I will do my best to say what recovery looks like to me, but I am stating a disclaimer that I will be theorizing as I welcome my black hole of a future. I’m glad I have no frame of reference for what could come. I appreciate the uncertainty.

What I can do is delineate some circumstances that I hope I will work towards.

Here is my list…in recovery:

In terms of my relationship and food:

-       Until it becomes unnecessary and only time can tell, I eat according to my meal plan and remain curious about ways in which my eating disorder may be attempting to manifest. I respect and listen to my eating disorder’s voice but not collude with its demands.

-       I remain curious about my anxieties

-       I do not fear hunger. I can feed myself.

-       I am not binging, subjectively binging, purging or restricting. I am not using food to self-sooth or to avoid emotions.

-       I am not using water to assuage magical beliefs that it purifies me. My magical thinking can be used in creative realms, but not in biological realm and not in ways that adversely affect my health.

-       I am not exercising to avoid emotions, to punish myself or to punish my body.

-       I live without knowing my body weight. For me, the seemingly innocuous desire to know my body weight is an indication that something is seriously wrong.

-       I accept my body, I am aware of dysmorphia and I love my body just the way it is.

However, my relationship with food and body will become more peaceful as the following things take root…

So, in recovery…I imagine that…

-       I believe I may need to fake it until I make it: I need to live the opposite of my abusive core beliefs until I can maintain authentic self-love and allow it to saturates areas that used to house self-hate.

-       I permit myself to have and hold worthy qualities. I can call myself beautiful, kind, compassionate, intelligent, loving and lovable without experiencing vicious self-hating backlash, coming from the core belief/central fear, which is that I will be abandoned because it is arrogant of me to say nice things about myself.

-       I allow myself to be as intense as I happen to be without fearing repercussions of melodrama.

-       I am engaged in a curious and ongoing process of exploring my body, my sensuality, my sexuality, my interaction with nature, with food, with other people; and there are other ways I might have missed, ways in which I respect my body and experience it with awareness as a sacred vessel that helps me experience and revel in pleasure. This state is as opposed to sinking into cutting thoughts that lend me to experience emotional turmoil and to react to myself in a hateful way.

-       My sexual trauma has been resolved. So, I am no longer engaging in trauma re-enactment or other forms of self-harm.

-       I can express emotions that my life experience trained me to avoid because of the false belief that they are shameful and disrespectful, such as anger, sadness, and fear; and even positive emotions, such as love, respect and happiness when intensity is attached to them. I can accept fluctuating emotions. Furthermore, I am comfortable with feeling and so welcome all feelings from myself and can tolerate and welcome all emotions from other people as well.

-       I can tolerate emotional distress without lashing out at myself.

-       My attachment trauma has been resolved. I feel securely attached to and grounded within myself. I believe in myself and my parts believe in me. My parts are securely attached to me. I am a mother to my internal system; my child parts and protectors expect unconditional love, kindness and compassion from me. So, I do not feel imprisoned by their debilitating starvation for love, security and safety. Instead, I recognize that I am capable of freeing my parts and me from the debilitation. I am capable of reassuring and encouraging myself. I am attuned to myself. As a result, I can accept external validation but do not need it in order to function because I am enough.

-       I can trust others and have a range of supportive individuals of my choice in my life.

-       I don’t feel the need to people please or care-take

-       I am an advocate for myself when other people cross my boundaries.

-       I can express my needs and wants and validate myself.

-       I can use my voice, express my thoughts and ask for support and guidance without fear or shame.

-       I can ride transition

-       I can say no and mean it

-       I can say yes and mean it

-       I can practice patience and awareness

-       I can recognize that I have worth simply because I am.

-       I can recognize when an apology is in order so that “I’m sorry” does not come from a self-hating place, but rather an authentic one.

-       I am aware of my cognitive distortions

-       I am curious about what I find myself avoiding and I go towards it.

-       I do not think that trying to think away my emotions is a solution to emotional discomfort.

-       I can become calm and self-sooth when confronted with fears of too much comfort and not enough comfort.

-       I do not believe that my happiness depends on living up to perfectionistic standards

-       Urges to self-harm, self-destruct and suicidal ideation do not plague me.

-       I do not find comfort in isolating and I see a distinct difference between isolating and being in solitude.

-       I can give myself credit for all of the hard work, dedication I have put forth to pull myself out of an early grave dug by my own fears. I can be happy that I am finally reaping the benefits of the sowing of the seeds, which had once been experiences of suffering can be viewed as transformative experiences that caused growth and enrichment.

-       I sense balance in my day-to-day existence

-       I have grieved my losses

Some of these statements are more attainable than others. Perhaps being aware of the vitality that each will surely bring into my life will be some way for me to qualify where I exist in terms of recovery. However, I think that each bullet point exists on its own grey-scale and so these doings and ways of being will shift in their own range between the black and the white because nothing in life is completely static. Some days I may feel awful and others I may feel delight. But, isn’t that the nature of life and of recovery, that it is inconsistent and feels labyrinthine? My hope is that recovery will look like surrendering to the tides of life regardless of the directions that they might pull me. I do not imagine that I will recognize a climax where I will proclaim I am “most recovered” because my recovery-process and my life-process are not mutually exclusive. Likewise, I am sure there will be no point where I will say, “at this moment I am more alive now than I ever will ever be,” because in recovery and in life I do not desire to live in a place of comparing; rather, I wish to live in the present moment as much as my willingness allows me to.

Well, first of all, I remember this girl. She is me, she is hopeful. I mean that I remember me at this point in recovery. As I read it over, I remember writing this piece. I remember trying to construct a future. I thought of the areas that an eating disorder affects, first the food and then the aspects of daily life. Then, I thought: if I had a daughter, what would I want for her? So, I constructed the agenda in that way. If you are in the recovery process, I highly recommend writing this agenda. 

The first thing I noticed in re-reading is my comment: "I don’t want a future constructed from my sick filters. I want something that else, despite how uncomfortable it feels." This stands out because it reminds me of residential treatment. We had these weekly papers called pre-contracts where we were supposed to report and list a few things we were doing well, a few things we were struggling with, a few ideas to counteract the struggle, long term goals (I think I always wrote self-actualization :) haha) and short term goals and then any requests for treatment changes. Something that really helped me in my early treatment process was to continue to reply in the space for requests for treatment changes, something to the effect of: "I have found myself trapped in my own mind, a living hell, and I do not believe that any suggestions I have to make will be coming from a healthy place. Please, for this time of my life, allow me to close off this room for my disease to come in and attempt to make sick decisions for me. I know that I am not yet aware of all of the ways that I mindlessly perpetuate my own disease." Do you understand why I made this decision? I knew that I lived in an internal world that was so chaotic and self-destructive, that I could not formulate a self-compassionate suggestion for my treatment. At face value, it might sound disempowering, but I was so overwhelmed by my eating disorder and self-hatred that I knew I needed to give my power to those individuals who could guide me to learn self-compassionate choice. I needed time for the self-hatred to dissipate before I felt safe making requests. Sometimes, when a person is really sick, the most self-compassionate thing to do (especially in a treatment situation) is to relinquish control over decisions being made for you. I can not express how insanely important it is to surrender. I don't mean to benignly acquiesce. I mean to surrender and to be with the tumultuous fear as it happens, remembering that the fear is there for a reason. It there for many reasons, one of which is to hold on to some semblance of a life that you recognize. But what if the life that you recognize is characterized by a painful subjective experience? Then one must let go of everything. But that's terrifying, right? Yes. It is. For me, it felt like a frightening but hopeful black hole. I remember this time of my treatment process very well. I don't know how to quantify it, it lasted a number of months and it was a time of becoming familiar with the sense of ungroundedness. It was during this time that I had started to equate fear with hope. Fear meant that I was going towards something I had yet to experience, and most often, self-care and authentic self-compassion were parts of that fearful process. So, I welcomed it, sometimes not whole-heartedly, but I was willing to continue to welcome it. Willingness is another ingredient that makes recovery process.

I'm really grateful that I wrote this agenda. I'm also really grateful for reflecting on it. Sometimes I forget that it was only two years ago that I was still really struggling with the food. I was struggling so much more than I am now (I think I'm using that DBT skill comparing, the one I vowed never to use, silly :). At this moment I feel incredibly grateful for the process. Lately, I consistently hear parts of me shaming me for not being further, further, further into recovery. Sometimes I forget the nature of the process and I just want to race forward. The ungroundedness that I talk about still gets me! But, re-reading agendas is a helpful reminder of what is true, of where I came from. Shame is not the way that recovery works. 

I say in the end of the agenda, "I think that each bullet point exists on its own grey-scale and so these doings and ways of being will shift in their own range between the black and the white because nothing in life is completely static." Since the time that I wrote this agenda, I have discovered that this is an accurate statement in my experience. In the past two years, I have learned that most of the bullet points have shifted on their own individual grey scales. I could post about each individual bullet point and write about how the experience has shifted within the grey, but I think that would be perfectionistic overkill. The basic take away point is that during times of general human stress (winter blues, holidays, school work, school, school...oh, and school) these bullet-pointed things get harder. They shift in their grey scale and become a bit darker, a bit more foreboding, a bit more difficult to deal with. Some aspects I hardly deal with at all, others I deal with differently on a day to day basis, other days I feel a generalized increased sense of liberation. Perhaps this is what people mean when they say that every day is a little bit different. It's true. But what i have learned is that if I can focus on one area and bring the light of love, curiosity and compassionate presence to one area, that loving-presence touches everything else. It brings a bit of light to everything. Love is incredibly powerful; it's incredibly expansive.

So, this is an important list for me. I thought that I would highlight the areas where I want to bring some re-focusing. Some areas where I have fallen towards the dark side. You see, another aspect of the process is that when one area is dark, it can bring darkness to the lighter areas. But, as I go over the list I feel overwhelmed with gratitude that I feel free in the majority of my bullet points. Still, it's important to re-visit, re-visit and re-visit such a list to bring 1. gratitude for the process and 2. non-shaming curiosity to areas where there is a struggle. So, my current darker stuck-points are:

-       I do not believe that my happiness depends on living up to perfectionistic standards: 

Especially being in school right now, it's really a struggle to not give in to the perfectionistic voice.

-       I do not think that trying to think away my emotions is a solution to emotional discomfort.

This is another area of struggle right now. Intellectualizing is one of my main defense mechanisms. As a part of recovery, I have made a committment to be aware of my intellectualizing (meaning thinking around the emotion or thinking about the emotion with the intention of influencing it to go away) and to instead just sit with the emotion. You see, the emotions are in the body, not the mind. We cannot make them go away. They are transient beauties that move though us. Otherworldly creatures. Welcome and human. They deserve to be felt.

-       I am aware of my cognitive distortions

If I am honest with myself, I can challenge my cognitive distortions with more intentionality.

-       I am curious about what I find myself avoiding and I go towards it.

Lately, I have been struggling with avoidance, distraction, comparing and numbing.

-       I can recognize that I have worth simply because I am; I am enough.

Lately, I have been struggling with the belief that I am inadequate.

So, these are all areas that I am working on currently. The process becomes just a bit more simple when I remember that anything that isn't loving acceptance is fear. And I learned how to develop a relationship with myself by going towards my fears. Thanks for reading :)