If you substitute "diet" for the word "drugs" or "high" you get the picture.
Recovery in a society that nonchalantly makes dieting the norm...the gospel of femaleness...a topic that is open-season at any function/gathering/social event ("...you look so great! Did you lose weight??") is an uphill battle.
Recovery is a private and closely-guarded secret. It is a position one takes by deliberate action and ironically, like the illness from which one is trying to escape, prefers a state of reticence and secrecy.
My healthy self wishes to be able to participate in a family breakfast where someone eats only half their meal, espousing that they are not as hungry as they thought. But Olivia is still there in the shadows...berating me for ordering the muffin, grilled with butter, that I ordered to shut her up and prove that my healthy self is in charge:
"...She is only eating half her meal....you cannot eat all of yours. She is thinner/prettier/smarter/more worthy than you...you are so weak to finish all of this food. Restrict and prove that you have what it takes. Be special again..."
Olivia strong-arms me into announcing that the muffin is burnt, hence I wont finish it, though I want to, because her influence still foils my resolve at times to heal the wreckage she makes of my desired normality.
She can see the chinks on the armor. She knows how to expose my weaknesses and widen the cracks so she can gain a foothold and potentially spring a cancerous hole in my recovery.
If I am honest, most of the time I am a willing participant. Led by the nose to self-destruct by losing back to my sickest weight. To go beyond it and be proud of the accomplishment.
If I am honest. I wish to restrict/over exercise/purge to the point that I am invisible again.
This is the struggle. This is the fight.
Emotion.
History.
Strength, and trust.
