starting recovery from stage one

recovery is not an easy process...nor was it said to be.

at the beginning, I assumed recovery was simply just a two-week journey that would ultimately lead me to my destination, but unfortunately, it took me at least six months. I never exactly counted the number of days, months, or even years while I was in this journey since it occurred simultaneously.

plus, i have also noticed that recovery was not about focusing on the number of days that you can manage to maintain a "calorie surplus" - it was something more.

it was all about freeing your mind from any thoughts of food which included the when, what, and why you are going to eat. it was all about letting go of what was grasping your mind for so long and throwing it all in a bin as if it never occurred. imagine a day in your life where you completely forgot your old habits and experiences from your ed.

it was possible, and i meant it.

 however, i will get into more of that later. saying that to someone who just began recovery was going to be hard to interpret unless he or she carefully read this story thoroughly. this story is not short, so please do not dramatically skip to the part where i finally "recovered." in short, it is not linear but rather a series of twisting events that led me to numerous choices.

part one (i accepted):

this is basically the answer to the question of why i recovered in the first place. i will give you a day in my life, and maybe you tell me if it was sustainable in the long run. i woke up, and the first thing i thought about was food. i merely checked the time every fourth of a second to know "when" i should eat. instead of listening to my hunger and full cues like every normal person, i avoided the signs, messing up the balance in my body. however, during the time, all i cared about was if i met my calorie goal, which stood at 1200 calories max every single day. if i got lucky, i had it much lower.

i remembered that i valued quantity over quality, meaning that i would literally boil three eggs, a 45-calorie piece of toast (which tasted awful), and low calorie cream cheese for breakfast because it was lower than 300 calories. compared to nowadays, i would eat a normal piece of toast with almond butter and one egg on top, and that would satisfy me more. though i thought low calorie foods meant healthy, none of my foods met a majority of nutritional values. my 45-calorie bread lacked the grains and vitamins that a normal piece of bread had.

i remembered that i would save all my food till it was night time; thus, i had more to eat and enjoy myself while i was famished during the morning till the afternoon. i thought that it was easy to hide my famished self throughout the house without having anyone suspecting a thing, but unfortunately, my taunting mood swings already took a hit at each member, particularely my mother, of the house.

i remembered that my snacks would be larger than my meals. i especially ate small amounts during lunch time like soup or a salad, but once it reached nightime, i had two protein bars and a pint of halo ice cream. knowing that i had a whole plate of food awaiting for me till night, i would only dream about food. watching videos of others playing around with food and creating it into cute, small designs became my hobby, which was ironic, knowing that soeone like me would never eat them in centuries.

i remembered that i would literally have to wait until it was a specific meal time till i ate. you may find this normal within any household, but i took the rule to the extreme. if my family decided to eat at 7 pm since they wanted to go to a restaurant, i would hold a fit. in reality, i was panicking. this meant that my whole schedule that i have planned out for myself is now ruined. not only for that matter, but it also meant that i had to go to a restaraunt...which brings me to my next point.

i remembered that whenever i had to go to a restaraunt or be at some social event, it brought me a sort of unrelaxed feeling. the only question that was going through my mind was,

how many calories? what should i order? what do i do?

looking back, i could not believe how much i stressed over from eating out. i became so obssessed that i even viewed the menus beforehand and chose the option that i wanted before anyone else. if they did not list any calories next to their names, i had to make sure that i, myself, knew the food all around.

a caprese salad? oh, okay, so that is only tomatos, lettuce, and cheese, right? i can always ditch out the cheese.

a basil tomato soup? not bad, probably 500 calories (um, yeah it was most certainly NOT 500), i will only eat half the portion.

caesar salad? toss out the croutons and ask for dressing on the side.


now you kind of get the image of what i am trying to say.

more importantly, i remembered how i negatively affected my parents by making them worried. at my lowest weight, people slowly whispered to them,

"your daughter is getting pretty small. how is she?"

people thought that my family did not know what i was going through, but in the back of their deep minds, they did. they just did not know what else to do with me.

so how did i come out of denial?
i was stumbling across pictures of my old friend from high school on instagram. i havent seen her for such a long time, so when i recently found a photo of her, i was shocked. she had lost a lot of weight, and it wasnt healthy amount. it dropped to a point where her eyes were concaved in, her bones were protuding from her body, and her skin looked paler as ever.

what was happening to her? was she okay?

i thought to myself...never did i know that i went through the same process. i did not know that there were people out there like me watching my photos and observing my transformation with pity.

but i wasnt small. i was healthy...right?

after being stuck in a deprived body for over six months, i became delusional, forcing myself to think that i was healthy. looking back at my old photos, i was disgusted with myself. let me remind you i was at a bmi of 19 in my old photos...

anyway, looking at these photos gave me some sort of reflection of myself. however, it wasn't only the photos that gave me a haunted shock, but it was also because i was sick of treating my family this way. i knew my mother was worried. my dad tried not to intervene with my ed whatsoever since  he believed that getting in between would just make our relationship worse.

i wanted to change.
i thought i could see this change within two weeks.
boy, was i wrong.


let me know in the comments if i should continue...
i am going to update every day:)