NEDAW

As an eating-disordered person, I should be all about NEDAW. I should want to spread the idea that EDs come in all shapes and sizes, and one doesn’t need to be completely emaciated to be dying both physically and mentally. But in reality, I hate it. I’ve kept my ED secret from most of the people in my life – always staying at (or almost at) a so-called “healthy weight” has allowed me to do that – and so even when someone posts something that I really want to share or “like” or whatever, I feel like I would be exposing myself (never mind the fact that a non-ED person could totally like a great post about recovery; ED has turned me into a paranoid freak). I feel pressure to post “before and after” photos with me at my lowest weight and me now running a race, and I’m not sure if I want validation that recovery is the right choice or if I just want to show the world that “hey, I was really skinny at one point so please take my ED seriously.” Not that I would post something like that; I’m not ready to be exposed as having an ED.

But beyond that, NEDAW is also incredibly triggering. I decided to peruse the hashtag this morning because recovery posts are supposed to be inspiring, right? But all I got out of it was a bunch of girls who were a) way skinnier than I am or ever was and/or b) are doing much better with this whole recovery thing than I am or think I could be. It also reinforced the idea that recovery means weight gain, and that’s just terrifying. So much so that I went and purged my breakfast – bran flakes. Who the fuck purges bran flakes? This girl, that’s who.

So now I’m trying to psych myself up for a run because my race is in six weeks and I’ve got to get training, snow or no snow. But purging makes me feel crappy and depression makes me feel unmotivated and now I don’t want to do anything productive at all – even though I really need to clean my house if we’re having people over tonight. Well, cleaning burns calories I suppose. Time to take some meds and get off my ass. We’ll see about the run later.

Hope everyone else is getting more positive things out of this week.