NEVER GOOD ENOUGH....

Too many, probably everyone, I'm the last person they would assume could develop an eating disorder. But by now I can see how it could happen. Not necessarily this eating disorder directly, but rather indirectly.

It all started when I was a child...or a teenager...or about five years ago? Either way, this thing started early; my thought patterns began forming without my knowledge that they were twisted. My brain is wired to work the way that it does. At times my intelligence is incomprehensible even to myself. Yet there are times when my mind tells me to do things that would throw every bit of my intelligence away.

I've been trying to destroy this demon inside my head, and I have yet to be successful. This past month has been rather disappointing since I started down this road to recovery from the eating disorder that has enslaved me for the past four years.

I have never considered myself stubborn. Rather a perfectionist plagued with OCD tendencies. Never a perfectionist to be better than everyone else. Instead as an attempt towards some form of stability in contrast to my bipolar turbulence and life events. But I'm beginning to rethink this theory.

Maybe I'm naive but I'm surprised at how easy it was to slip into relapse. I haven't been very good to myself lately. I've discovered that the complexities of my distorted thought patterns are more complicated than I know. I'm disappointed that I had never realized this long ago.

Allowing my anorexia to re-enter my life is a less than a nice way of telling me I am stubborn. I know I am not control. I know when my eating disorder is prevalent it is in control. Logically I know God is in control. Unfortunately anorexia has once more entered my routine. And I'm not proud.

Every time I allow anorexic behavior to enter my life, I strengthen the path in my brain of which I have tried so hard to shut down. I'm surprised how quick the body return to the comfortableness of starvation.

There are some things the body never forgets. Most of them speak to us to receive a response; an action. To get our attention. The body tells us when it needs rest. When it needs sleep. A fever tells us our body is fighting something that is attacking us. Pain informs us of an injury. The brain tells us when we need to eat. It provides our hunger sensation. The body can also forget. Strangely, the brain can forget how to present that hunger sensation. They body is capable of forgetting how to eat.

Lately after doing fairly well recovering from my eating disorder anorexia, my body has forgotten the appeal of food. No more hunger sensation. No more desire. No more willingness. I am only able to guess what has triggered its revisit. The feelings of being controlled? The complexities of being a weekend dad and step-dad? The attempts at being manipulated by my ex-wife and her ways of interfering with my relationships with our children? The ups and downs of my moods? The guilt I put on myself of all the troubles I've gotten myself into and the impacts they have had? All?

NEVER GOOD ENOUGH...

Those words, or better yet, mindset, has cursed me for as long as I can remember. If I had to identify one thought that has plagued, that has to be it. Never has it been having to be "good enough" for others, but instead for myself. This feeling has always been with me. No matter what I do or how hard I try or how much I achieve, I never feel that anything is right.

I used to think that if I could all A's in my undergrad and masters programs or lose one more pound then I would finally fill my "enough" deficit. Yet "enough" never comes. Meeting a weight loss goal would mean a new goal must be made.

"ED's are associated with a tendency to worry about mistakes, a low sense of self-esteem and low perception of control over internal feelings and external events. Perception of control and self-esteem seems to moderate the predictive power of concern mistakes on symptoms of ED. The results suggest that a low perception of control is an important cognitive factor in ED."  -- Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry

Simply put, ED's are a subconscious attempt at normalcy, no matter how distorted the reasoning is. The ED becomes the body's way of responding to chaos.

Dear God, please...You've brought me too far to fall back now.