Who You Are vs Who You Are Trying to Be by Camille Richard

*Potential trigger warning * 

    Do you even know who you are before they told you who to be?

You are not alive to be skinny, insecure, silent, desirable or overly friendly. Stop trying to be perfect, you’ll never win at that game. Stop apologizing for existing. Who you are is more important than what you do. Your behaviour doesn’t define your character and your disorder doesn’t define your identity. Your job doesn’t make you a better person, your relationship doesn’t make you more loveable, caring for your family and friends doesn’t make you more valuable. Your worth is not define by outside circumstances, not by how little or how much you eat or exercise and for sure not by your weight and size.

We often forget who we are by trying to be liked by others, while all along we only needed the approval of ourselves. Be yourself, no one can do it better than you. Stop resisting emotions, stop pushing down your vulnerability, it doesn’t make you invincible. Your eating disorder doesn’t make you special... your quirks and personality do.

We create limits to keep us inside our comfort zone because it’s easier than taking the risk and ‘failing’, however the only way to learn is through this process. You may see a ‘relapse’ as a mistake, a step back, or you can choose to see it as the reality of being in recovery and a reason to fight even more for what you want : to be at peace with food and your body.

We tend to get into one of the extreme : either we are obsessed with control or we try not to care about a single thing, that’s how the restrict and binge cycle starts. We cling to something or we run and hide. In both cases it’s avoidance...what are you trying to avoid? Is it fear, anxiety, sadness, grief, anger, love, happiness? What boundaries are you not setting? What self-care are you not doing?

It sucks to say but there’s a reason behind everything you do. It’s your job to figure out what it is.

Listen, your mental illness is NEVER anybody’s fault (certainly not yours), we don’t ask for it and we rather quite frankly live without it. However it is your responsibility to heal, only you can do what’s necessary to recover. People can’t force you into it. Making excuses won’t help, you have to take the time, you have to make it a priority, you have to spend your energy on this.

Your ED can only exist with secrecy and shame... so the way to get rid of it?

Be honest with yourself and others, be compassionate and learn to forgive. Replace self-hatred with love. It won’t happen like magic, it’s not easy. Make small steps : give yourself a compliment when looking in the mirror, replace your old clothes that no longer fit, find support in the community, give up the rules and judgements around what you ‘need’ to do, show up to the event even though it scares you, reach out to your loved ones.

You make the biggest improvements when you don’t realize you are, the breakthroughs are not always big shiny moments. Sometimes it’s realizing at the end of a meal out with a friend that you got a drink and desert without even thinking about it, it’s shopping without breaking down crying even if you felt uncomfortable in the changing room, it’s throwing out the scale.

When you think you got it all figured out, life will throw you something else to make sure you know you can handle it (because you do). It’s not a test, it’s not a competition, it is a journey of self-discovery.