Self-Aware

So I added a yoga widget to the bottom of the page, as I was reading something in the yoga journal today that talked about how yoga has proven to be useful in addiction recovery.  Binge-eating is an addictive behavior, and it has many parallels to the descriptions of physical urges and anxiety experienced by drug addicts prior to relapse, so I thought it might be helpful for anyone with an ED.  I personally think that yoga is useful in dissipating nervous energy that so often characterizes those of us with EDs, and I would like to make it more part of my routine in stead of doing it sometimes.

I haven't written here in a while because I have another blog that I write on, it's a venue for people struggling with EDs, so I find it helpful because it makes me feel less alone.  I still like this blog a lot though, because I feel like it's totally private and also I designed it to my liking (very into ivory).  I relapsed this past week and got very very depressed, then decided to get up and stop fucking myself over.  I realized that something had to change, so decided to wait until next summer to apply to grad school rather than doing it right now and cramming everything into right now right now rightnow.  I felt instantly better after making that decision-- I think it's the first time I've made a decision based solely on my health and just for myself.  I feel like I stepped off of the hamster wheel, and it has been very freeing.

I am more committed than ever to watch what I eat and make sure that it's only what my nutritionist has outlined for me, but my reasons have changed.  I want to watch what I'm eating solely to save my sanity, it has nothing to do with weight anymore because I've realized that that is futile and only frustrates me.  Where I am right now, I feel I'll never like my body, but so what.  After falling into such a severe depression this past week, I can see that this is a matter of me either being functional or not, it has nothing to do with weight.  So now I feel even better equipped to deal with urges to binge, because it really is a matter of health or not for me, I can't function worth a damn if I eat anything at all that wasn't specified by my nutritionist.

My main focus of the moment, other than to stay on track with food (which is technically always a focus for anyone with an ED), is to make decisions for myself.  Instead of just ebbing and flowing with life and doing everything according to some non-existent blueprint that only exists in the prison of my conditioned mind, I want to find out what it is that I actually want and what makes me feel happy and alive and I want to do that.  No exceptions.  Deciding to take a year between college and grad school was the first decision of this nature that I've ever made, and it was the best thing I could have done for myself.  Based on that, I want to continue my life in this fashion.