Habits are hard to break, but harder to forget

You can think about your problem any way you like, pretend it isn't there, or you can face the truth and acknowledge its existence. Either way, the reality of your problem will still be there. You just have more power to make your situation better if you face it.

Usually, facing the truth of a difficult situation is a short term pain than most people anticipate. It can hurt like a sucker punch, but then comes the best part. You get the chance to move forward with your life, leaving behind a dirty piece of baggage that you've been dragging around behind you. As long you keep trying to dress up that piece of baggage and keep it with you, it's going to keep weighing you down.

Food is easy to become my adversary. Anorexia can easily become my baggage. Anorexic behaviors are obviously way more than just bad habits, they are habit forming. They are rituals.

I was familiar with the notion that an eating disorder is like a tumor in that it has the potential to sneak up some time in the future after recovery has become well set in. Reality says that it will more than likely do so to some degree from time to time in the future. I have found that reality.

My Reflections of Anorexia....National Eating Disorders Awareness Week

This week is designated National Eating Disorders Awareness Week (NEDAwareness) 2011, Feb 20-26 by the National Eating Disorders Association.

Their mission: "Our aim of NEDAwareness Week is to ultimately prevent eating disorders and body image issues while reducing the stigma surrounding eating disorders and improving access to treatment. Eating disorders are serious, life-threatening illnesses — not choices — and it’s important to recognize the pressures, attitudes and behaviors that shape the disorder."

Did you know as many as one million men in the US struggle with an eating disorder?  My masculinity is not measured or achieved by not telling my story of pain and struggles. More and more males are developing eating disorders these days. My fatherhood is not compromised by moments of weakness.