Its been awhile...July 4th was my three year recovery date...I haven't cut, purged, or restricted since that date three years ago left me hooked up to ivs with six stitches in my arm. I wish I could say that something magical happens after you've been in recovery as long as I have but it doesn't. There are days when that ED voice makes its way to the forefront of your mind and you have to fight it, you have to stand up and tell yourself that you are stronger than the lies and you have more to live for than to go back to being trapped in anorexia and bulimia again.
   Some days I think about how it was before, always focusing on the food never dealing with real life. Now I think about real life...I havd a disease that is going to kill me without an eventual transplant and I am a full time mommy and being a mommy is the absolute number one priority no matter how sick I am some days I get up and I smile and care for him. I'm terrified of the future, terrified of what is going to happen. I feel like we face so many uncertaincies everyday as a family and with another surgery looming next week I've been fighting those old voices. People praise me for three years of recovery and I'm thankful for that, but I can tell you my recovery didn't happen in a doctor's office or treatment center...spent many months in hospitals only to resist their help. I clawed my way back to the surface...I threw the medicines I was constantly overdosing on, I took every sharp out of my house, I cried, I tube fed, I fought josh many days trying to find a razor or purge even a drink of water. My recover wasn't overnight and I promise I believe even now I'm still learning. I'm learning that the reflection in the mirror doesn't define me neither does a clothing size or a number on a scale and trust me she still screams some days but I know I can't afford to listen. Because of anorexia I will probably not live to see my son graduate or I will watch from a wheelchair or hospital bed. I am fed through a tube in my small intestine that is barely absorbing anymore so I have to have a needle in my chest five days a week risking a deadly blood infection to get my extra fluids and potassium...were the years of anorexia worth a shorten life full of pain that leaves me curled up in bed for hours. I live everyday in pain and I'm not complaining because maybe my pain will save someone else. The hardest part is knowing that my son, my heart may never know me. There is no magical cure for anorexia but I promise you can claw and fight your way out so don't give up...you can do it without treatment...not a treatment center around would help me because of my insurance and I was too medically compromised with the gastroparesis. You have to fight the monster and u can win.