Eating Disorder Recovery Journal

Why Choose Recovery

Why recovery?

Why do you want to loose the things you've got only for recovery?

Why don't you do recovery on your own without leaving everything you've got?

Not only friends or family asked me with that kind of questions. My brain already asked me right before I made the decision to go back to Indonesia. I was struggling with my own decisions five months ago. In my room. Alone. I was really scared to tell anyone about my decision, it feels like I'm going to tell my parents 'Hey, I'm going to kill myself if you guys don't let me leave my job and do recovery.'

I know, it sounds so creepy, but I actually wouldn't say that directly, but once I told my mom about my decision and all the reasons, my mom told me that it felt like I was saying it. She tried to give some advice. Okay, just go to the point, I'm asian, so are my parents. If you are Indonesian or asian, you probably would understand about this. Asian people, well, most of them, think that studying, staying, and working overseas sounds really cool, like you would look more valuable. So the choice that I made to go back to Indonesia really shook everyone's mind. She asked me to find the psychologist in New Zealand instead and still try to do my job, she even asked me if I wanted her to go there and accompany me.

I told my parents about that, a month after thinking about that alone. I honestly was stressing out alone, making my own catastrophes. My brain made all the words that my parents would say to me, what my friends would ask me, I knew that my parents would really try so hard to make me stay there, even I knew what would be happened when I'm home. And I prepared myself for it. And all that was in my mind surprisingly really happened. But I had been preparing myself for it. And still tho, my mind still couldn't accept it. It hurt me when they couldn't understand at the first.

I had been trying to do recovery since 3 years ago, on my own. But just changed it into the wrong way. I did binge instead for one and half year, because I had no idea how to recover myself from Bulimia Nervosa. I thought that I just needed to stop purging, and everything would get better, I didn't think that is actually about my mind. I thought doing it by myself would be fine, because I had trust issues, I never thought that people would really understand what was in my mind, and doing it alone is the only way, because the real person that I would have all the time, is myself.

But after being a bulimic again after 'my own way' recovery, I found there's something wrong about this, and I was telling my friend who was a bulimic too, and she was like, 'Okay, you really need a help. You have to seek help'. I didn't think that I have to do it immediately, I really enjoyed doing it, I found it amazing to do it.

After getting all the symptoms, like anxiety, unstable heart beats, sore throat, swollen eyes and cheeks, dehydration, red spots on face, and a weak body. I started to do my own recovery again, with my own way again. But I knew it I would never make it better, I needed a help since then.

The main reasons are actually because of my mind. I don't want to let it controlling me, like;

counting all the calories, feeling guilty for every meal I ate, blaming myself for letting myself eat the meals without throwing it up afterwards, telling my self lies that I would never be enough for anyone so it would better if I just stayed in my room and do binge and purge, telling myself that the things could comfort me are only foods. Even suicide thought is the common happening and it made me do self harm instead because I started feeling numb and I just wanted to feel the pain

And I found it so sad, I know, and I don't want to let the devil inside taking control of me. All I want is to let myself find the true self, give myself time and the things that I deserve, let that self found the beauty in its own, empower my own self, let the past be the past and start to create the new future and love the present, and forgive myself for being so rude to me is the most important one.

The first week of the recovery was really hard for me, I couldn't really open up to the psychologist , I still had the guts to relapse again. But this is the sixth week of recovery. I find joy, comfort, and peace in decision I made. I get my friends and family empowering me, when I ever thought they wouldn't. Even the psychologist who doesn't really know me as a person but just as a patient, I can see that she is happy too seeing the progress.

I thank God for letting me experience this. Having eating disorders is hard, and recovery is so much harder, but now I'm feeling so grateful for it. I can experience all the feelings and the mixed emotions at once. And it makes me thankful every time I can control the things, I mean, I start to appreciate things I do. My mind starts to refuse the negativity. And every time I want to binge and purge, my brain starts thinking that is not the way, that is not the way to make me happy anymore. Well, I still miss my ED sometimes, but the will to be healed is much stronger now, and I thank myself for it.

I'm still learning how to fully love myself and be comfort in my own skin, and I know it's a process, I have to wear the bravery as the daily outfit so I can be brave to be my own self and enjoy every step, because I know I chose the right thing. Being healed inside out.

Love,

G

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Have you ever heard a song and repeat it for hundred times just because it gives you power? Here's the songs that give me power when I'm feeling low:

Just a Little bit - Maria Mena

Be OK - Ingrid Michaelson

I Won't - Little Mix

Grown -Little Mix

Clued Up - Little Mix

Cannonball - Little Mix

Cannonball - Lea Michelle

Even When It Hurts - Hillsong United

I can just be me - Laura Story

Perfect peace - Laura Story

Love Myself - Hailee Steinfeld