Content warning: Disordered thoughts, which are eventually resolved
Some thoughts from my RecoveryRecord app, which I record my food and my feelings about food in. This starts out not so great, but it ends up good!
8:30 PM
I should have a snack, but I’m tired. I am a bit hungry and liking the feeling, which I know isn’t good. Empty feels as close as I can get now to being thin. I want to be thin. Maybe this will help.
I know this is disordered thinking. I just don’t have the energy or motivation to counter it right now.
Midnight (yeah, it took some convincing):
I woke up about halfway through the night, only to check the time and realize it had actually only been an hour (8:30-9:30). (It felt like it had been half the night!)
It took time to admit that I needed food. I was having trouble countering my thoughts from earlier. I tried on my own, but I eventually reached out to a friend. I felt good for really having tried myself first, though. It wasn’t the knee-jerk reaction to get help elsewhere. I worked and still needed help, and only then did I reach out.
He helped me for a long time, and then he said he was going to go get something to eat. I asked if I deserved it, too, and then said that I knew he’d say yes.
He’s full of surprises, though! He said no, which shocked me, until I read his next sentence. “No you don’t deserve it. Because you don’t have to deserve it.”
It’s good to have those feelings and thoughts not just countered, but… exposed as completely flawed. Not just changing the rubric, but realizing it’s not needed and throwing it out entirely.
Even after all that, since he was getting a snack and going to play a game, my ED suggested that he wouldn’t know if I skipped a snack. But I countered that. I’m not doing it for him. I don’t need him to hold me accountable. I can do this for myself, because it’s what’s right for me.