unraveling the story that keeps me trapped
an exercise in rebuilding self-trust
cw: in this post i touch on the topics of eating disorder and dieting. if these topics don’t serve you, please take good care (and pass on this one if needed)
the past month has been a trip. i know i haven’t reached my destination yet. that’s okay. growth happens in the sticky spots before we ‘arrive’.
i’m not sure where to pull the first thread to begin this unraveling. part of me wants to start at the beginning for context (like the very, very beginning). part of me wants to start seven years ago, which was it’s own beginning of sorts. and part of me wants to start right here, right now.
i think i’ll begin seven years ago…
it was 2018. i knew i had inflammation in my body. i was always in pain. i didn’t know any other early 30-somethings that were in the pain i was in. i went to the chiropractor often – and it helped. but within a week or two i’d be back to square one.
here’s the thing though – you can know something about yourself and still be persuaded you’re wrong. i follow the intuitive, @brown19170 on instagram who i’ve heard talk at length about how society looks to ‘the biggest daddy in the room’ to tell us how things are and to make decisions for us. and i see that when i reflect on the ways i have moved through and (in some ways) continue to move through the world. i still feel my nervous system relax when i know i don’t have to be the adultiest adult in the room.
so in 2018, i knew that my body was inflamed and i knew that one sure-fire way to bring down the inflammation was to change my diet.
i’ve had a fixation with food since i was young. i’ve been in varying states of disorder or recovery since i was eighteen, using food to control the out-of-controlness of life. you might have even called healthy eating my special interest (read: obsession) – at least until seven years ago.
true to form, i changed my diet. and the thing is…it worked.
the problem, though, was that i was eating less than twenty foods to stay pain-free.
while this was happening, i was also going to the doctor in search of medical answers. my doctor sent me for labs and x rays and said there was nothing he could do to help me. he referred me to a rheumatologist who took one look at my labs and x rays and said there was nothing he could do to help me because i didn’t have an autoimmune disorder as far as he could tell.
as the scales tipped into desperation and despair, the people in my life told me to stop. told me i was crazy. i remember my best friend at the time saying, you know you can’t trust yourself though, right? you’re crazy when it comes to food. (as in – you’ve created this in your head to give yourself an excuse to do the crazy, disordered thing)
so i stopped.
i medicated instead. i turned my senses off to my pain and other symptoms. i attributed them to the things people told me it made sense to attribute them to.
my work involved manual labour - that’s probably why my back hurt
my dentist told me i likely had arthritis in my jaw
i was a menstruating woman, that’s probably why i had so many headaches
i dieted and restricted food so much in my life, that’s probably why i had a mountain of food sensitivities and gut issues
(and as time went on i continued to find ways to justify my compounding symptoms)
for years, i looked back on that desperate moment in my life as my most shameful relapse. shameful because i should have known better. shameful because i felt my other-ness and unacceptability so viscerally. shameful because i thought i was ‘better’ and it pulled the rug out from under my feet to find out i wasn’t. that inside i was still an 18 year old girl seeking some control over an out-of-control life.
so i gave away all of my books about food, tucked away any knowledge i had accrued about the ways the standard american diet hurts us and the predatory practices of the food industrial complex. i pretended i didn’t know so hard that eventually i stopped knowing. someone would say something in conversation that i had once known to be true or untrue and i’d go, huh, that’s interesting.
for a couple of years, i still ate moderately healthy. but after my youngest son was born all bets were off. hot dogs and frozen lasagnas for supper, sugary cereal for breakfast. pass me the prepackaged, processed food please.
and here’s the thing. i never consciously decided that i didn’t care about what i put in my body. but i didn’t need to. shame decided that for me.
shame told me that for me it would never be healthy to pay attention. would never be safe. told me that, for me, it would always be one extreme or the other – so it may as well be the extreme that is socially acceptable.
i’ll be real, real honest with you — i am once again the girl eating less than twenty foods. it’s pretty unjoyful. i once again went to my doctor (a different one) and asked for help. he told me to just keep doing what i’m doing (eliminating foods) because it’s obviously working. because, you know, ‘these things can be so hard to diagnose’.
i know with all of my being that i can’t keep doing what i’m doing, but that i also don’t have the luxury to give up this time. i can no longer listen to ‘the biggest daddy in the room’ over my own body, my own intuition.
so this isn’t where my journey ends. i’m asking for help from professionals who are not a part of the sick-care industry. i wish i knew i could ask for help seven years ago. i wish someone who loved me had said, what you’re doing is too much for one person to navigate, you don’t need to stop but you do need help.
so that’s what i’m doing now, as someone who loves me. this is hard. but help is available. i don’t need to go it alone.
and my legacy is this:
i am not ashamed of the parts of me or the versions of me that ‘got it wrong’ or found themselves a little lost. i am not ashamed of this version of me that may or may not be wrong right now. it’s okay to get it wrong. and i’m learning the antidote to shame is trust. i trust that i know myself best. i trust my intuition. i trust that if i get it wrong i can repair. i trust that if i’m too much or too crazy for someone that doesn’t need to be my truth. i trust that if i stray from my path i will be gently, but firmly guided back.
and i send love to every version of me that i ever felt ashamed of. i tell them i’m sorry. i love you. i am not ashamed of you. i trust you. and if you need it, i got you.
forever and ever til the end of time. i got you.
i know this is just the first hurdle in reclaiming my health (whatever that may end up looking like). i know i need to prioritize rest. i probably need to change my environment. but, honestly, my refusal to look at what i was putting in my body and the shame that unconsciously directed me were the biggest barriers to overcome. i had to be willing to shine a light on the thing inside me that i was most afraid to look at.
and now i know that reclaiming my story is the foundation on which shame can finally be released and self-trust rebuilt.
some reflective questions i like for journaling or card pulling:
what part of me have i exiled that would serve me to reintegrate?
what can i do to send that part some love?
what part of my life could use a little more trust?
what am i wrong about that i think i’m right about? (approach this one with some gentleness and curiosity)
what am i right about that i think i’m wrong about?
melancholic songs i’ve been enjoying during this reclamation:
look alive - hana vu
let go - juliana madrid
coloured concrete - nemahsis
Krystal, I’m so sorry you’re struggling with this. I have struggled my way through eating disorder recovery and chronic illness too. Please let me know if you’d like some resources to support you during this rough patch and please take good care.💖