This past journal entry is a reminder to me that what is happening today does not have to be the future. It turns out that recovery is real (something I doubted for years), and that I could fulfill many of my dreams. I am now married with a beautiful young daughter. I thought that was never going to happen for me. So much to be grateful for. "Today was difficult. I am struggling and it is hard to put one foot in front of the other. I know what I need to do, but I lack the wil

The following is an excerpt from my journal. It was written a few months prior to me realizing that inpatient treatment was inevitable. I not only needed to go, but I had to go. I would have died without help. I had tried on my own to beat the eating disorder. I was at rock bottom. I was no longer able to even pretend that I was okay. I had no hope left, and the only thing carrying me was my family. The burden on them was getting to be too much. I was destroying them- emotion

The journey I am on has no destination. There is not a road map to follow, nor are there any posted signs signaling which direction to head, nor any indication as to how many miles there are to the next stop. It is a continuous progression of twists and turns, straightaways, and roundabouts. It is the journey of life, and there is no telling where it will take me from one day to the next. There is no way for me to control what is going to happen to me a minute from now let a

I wrote the following entry while in Hawaii on vacation. I want to share this because it shows how even great things that happened in my life could not bring me out of my disease. I was on vacation, which should have been fun and relaxing. Instead, my disease lived in my head the entire time. I remember little of the trip other than my struggle to attempt normalcy. "Part of me wants to not care how my body looks. There is so much contradiction. There is a part that wants to l

In the disease, I channeled much of my despair into words. My journals over the years have captured the intensity of pain and the deep darkness that the disease surrounded me in. When I first went to treatment, my case manager kept repeating how dark my writings were. She was very concerned about the depth of my depression, and I was told that I was on suicide watch for several days as the staff closely monitored my every move. At the time, I laughed at them for being so caut

I often have felt that if people really knew the real me that they would turn and run faster than the speed of light. I have always felt inadequate among others. I now see that the disease of addiction feeds off of that. The disease likes angst because then the disease can push the cruise control button, sit back, and watch the action. People with eating disorders, or any addiction, often put a lot of energy into putting up a false front. They only allow people to see glimpse