the perfect package

I did it. I didn't want to and I didn't try to...but somehow I did it. Here I was trying so hard to make it through each day staying totally oblivious to what was really going on deep inside my heart...and today it was shattered. Somehow a mirror appeared in front of my half hearted smiling face and in the reflection I saw reality. It's not happy or smiling at all...in fact its in pretty sad shape. I know you are thinking, well, reality is a good thing bethany. I know, I know...it just sucks to feel the weight of everything.

Getting better is freaking hard. I would like to sound inspiring and confident and detail my life in perfect analogies for the world to learn from my daily breakthroughs...but today is just not one of those days. It actually makes me wonder if I am always full of "it" (possibly lacking a "sh" in front of it). Because today it really feels that way. I started this blog months ago as a way to encourage myself as I encouraged others by walking my journey to freedom out loud...and I'm sorry to announce that i think I am finally starting to reach the "angry phase"... and I just don't see my anger ever being motivational for anyone around me. Again, this is making some of you smile, but try and at least pretend to be as frustrated for me as I feel. So here is my warning. What follows from here might not be happy. It might not be inspiring. It may be flat out annoying or depressing...but I can promise you that its real...and apparently that's all I have to offer at this point.

Like some of you know, I'm not such a fantastic liar. Deep breath, here we go.
I think one of the hardest parts of recovery that I have to make peace with is that its messy. I want the pretty sun dress, perfect hair and makeup, and glowing eyes that match the genuine smile. I want to laugh at the right times and cry when things are sad...I want life to be beautiful. I want to fit in a perfect little package that someone will admire with awe, pick up, and want to keep forever. I want the shiny bow and the glittery wrapping paper. I want the corners to be folded symmetrically and the tape to be transparent. Instead I feel like the package under the tree that no one really wants simply because of the way it has been wrapped. Its the one with the print that doesn't have anything to do with the nature of the occasion. Its the one that has tape everywhere leading you to wonder how there is even a way to somehow get what is inside out. There is no pretty bow. The paper is crumpled and probably screams of a "re-use" of a former present's covering...it has "hand-me-down" written all over it. I have been living my life trying so hard to change the paper on the outside and it seems the harder I try the more crumpled and tattered I become. I am so tired of being a mess. I am so tired of having hand-me-down written all over me. I am tired of my past defining who I am and becoming a selling point, or lack there of, for relationships to come. It hurts. It hurts more than sand on the beach or stars in the sky. My past is no longer the stories I have repeated for years and years...those stories have come to life and have developed a heart beat...the heart beat that I guess was always there but that was silenced in a vault deep within me.

It hurts to come alive...way more than it hurts to stay silent. However staying silent literally robs you of the ability to connect or form relationships with others...so you may be numb or void of emotional pain, but in its place you feel detached and alone...like no one can really love you for who you are. It's an oddly difficult choice at times...stay numb and alone with an appealingly simple put together package...knowing you can never let anyone get close enough to open it or else they would find the used disgusting particle inside. Or, face the disgrace and shame of the content of your package. Face the disgrace and shame of your mismatched print and crumpled edges. Acknowledge the tape that is everywhere and yet is still barley holding you in tack. AND with all of that risk that no one will ever want to get any closer than the paper your present yourself with to the world. I try and tell myself that at least with the second option, if someone ever does want to chance their luck, they will know what they are getting...so they don't expect perfection and find a tornado. They will see a hot mess, and Lord knows why, want it anyway...and find that its exactly what they expected it to be.

I know the right answer is that God has the ability to transform any package and take the pain and devastation and shame and guilt and abuse and sickness and whatever else the world can thrown at a person, and touch it and make it breathtaking. I KNOW that. I even BELIEVE that. But some days, like today, my heart grows weary at how desperate I am to see Him love me enough, ME, to make this yuck into something beautiful. Because it hurts alot. I keep searching for that next thing to fix the gaping hole in my raw heart and I know its HIM. I really do. I just wish I could find a way for that information, that piece of truth, to penetrate my soul. I want that to be tangible so desperately. I want to feel the arms of Jesus all around me as I come out of a flashback...I want to be able to feel His love as I weep in brokenness as the memories of yesterday disappear into the walls of Tiffany's office. I find myself picturing that little girl...since its me I see her dressed in a pretty pink nightgown holding flowers, presenting herself as the only package she knew how to at the time. And the wrong person picked her. They unwrapped her package and tore its contents to pieces...and when they were finished left everything that was inside and all of its wrappings in a pile...and walked away.

Some days aren't stand up and cheer kind of days. Some day I feel pretty successful to still be here to type out my heart in words. I think what is most important though is to make it to the end of the day determined that facing what is inside is the only way to genuinely change what is on the outside. I'm struggling - yes. I'm frustrated and angry and annoyed by the way my life looks right now - yes. I still HATE food- yes. But regardless, I keep fighting. I eat the stupid meals and listen to the stupid treatment team and follow the stupid exercise plan. : )...because I believe there is hope. I believe in the God who is hope. I walk by faith, knowing that He who began a good work in me will be faithful to complete it. Paul said it way better then I ever could...and His chains and bondage were way more literal than mine...

Phillipians 1: 3-10

"I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart; for whether I am in chains or defending and confirming the gospel, all of you share in God's grace with me. God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus.

And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God."

Dangerously Unpredictable

I don't do well with being in the moment. I'm curious. Restless. Easily distracted. I like to run hard through life, always chasing the next moment...always believing what is to come will make up for what is right now...and its easy to do. Trust me. Its one of those times in my life right now...i don't like how it feels to be in the moment. I don't like the decisions I have to make. I don't like the constraints I feel in direct correlation to "self care". I feel weak and pathetic...and maybe a little on the whiny side : ). I'm exhausted. I left Magnolia Creek late Monday afternoon and started at Renfrew today (Tuesday morning). Here is a little not so secret this about me...I hate change. I know, I'm a basket(my Vessels and Flowers plug!), I'm supposed to love change. But I don't. I thrive in routine. I like to sit in the same place everyday, eat the same food and be around the same people. I find so much comfort in consistency and predictability. Which is awesome considering life is pretty much only predictable in the fact that it always changes.
Today was a hard day. Meeting new people and starting a new program is always anxiety provoking. Calculate in the added bonus of a depleted bank account and a doctors order not to work and you pretty much have a panic attacks waiting to happen. Kidding...kinda. That said, I did ok. Don't get me wrong. I didn't enjoy doing any of it. I hate following a meal plan. I hate asking for help. I hate having to make new connections with new people and I hate missing people I really love. So it sucked, but I did it. The biggest dilemma I am running into right now is trying to figure out how the meal plan from the creek and the meal plan at renfrew match up...figuring out what I need to add (or who knows maybe subtract!) to make everything balance out. They don't have a morning snack at Renfrew so upon leaving today the dietitian told me just to add an extra snack to this afternoon....I looked at her like she must be talking to someone else in the room who didn't just discharge from residential the day before. Getting in a snack and dinner on my own was already my challenge...trying to fit in another one was just too much. So, I did the best I could. I ate my dinner. I ate my snack...and even though I feel like I eat way more than anyone else I know, I am still pressing forward.
I was looking at sweet pictures of my precious nieces today...taken back by just how beautiful they really are and it reminded me oh just how much I want to be a mom. My dietitian here in nashville told me once that doing the right thing isn't going to feel good for a long time...and in fact hating what you are doing might actually be a sign you are on the right track. I understood that today. I hated eating my meals. I hated cooking dinner. I REALLY hate having to do dishes after you eat ( I mean seriously is there any perks to making a mess, eating it, and then having to clean it up. Grrrrrrr.). But I have to believe I am on a pathway that will bring the ability to enjoy life in the moment. And I know that starts now. I know I have to start appreciating the things in the here and the now that I am thankful for...so that I am not constantly living my life for the next thing...and never having anything to show for where I am today. And there are so many things I am thankful for. I have amazing roommates. Amazing friends...and an amazing church family standing around me. I am so thankful...more thankful then words can express.

Right now I continue to choose to walk by faith. I am scared and tired and wanting to just have something familiar to hold onto...some form of addiction or dependency to ease the discomfort. But I have to believe that its only through clinging to Christ...and the people He has surrounded me with...and the truth that He has given to me...that I will experience the freedom I long for. I must run with full abandon onto the pathway that is marked dangerously unpredictable. I guess if things get predictable that is a pretty good indicator that I have stepped off the pathway into the great unknown...that I have fearfully cowered to the ease of destruction. Radical change will only come through giant steps of faith...if it was easy, faith wouldn't be required. So, with sleepy eyes I finish writing this, determined to make tomorrow a better day. I am sad, missing the staff and the girls that have been my family for the last 4 months. I am trying to figure out how to be sad and be just that...sad. Not trying to cover it with behaviors and temporary fixations...maybe even letting a few tears fall down my face...because I will no longer live my life trying to make the right now as comfortable as possible. Running from pain has only led me down a pretty colored road straight to a life of bondage and shame. No more. Its time for radical change. Its time to take the road marked dangerously unpredictable... and who knows, in the end, it might be the path that leads me straight to my dreams.

the choice

Everything is a choice. Everything. There have been moments in the last week that have broken me...literally bringing me to my knees. I am afraid. I am discharing from Margolia Creek next tuesday...after 90+ days in their program I am transitioning to the renfrew day treatment program in Brentwood. I thought after 3 months in a program I would be feeling solid and secure in my recovery. I thought after all this time, all this work and sweat and tears I would have more to show for it than a broken and humbled heart. I have found myself staring in the mirror crying out to the Lord asking Him where I went so wrong...and to help me find my way out of this trap. Its exhausting. Fighting this hard for this long and seeing the progress be so slow, so gradual. I have heard many people tell me over this time that it didn't take me a month to get into my eating disorder and it won't take me a month to get out...but many of us tend to have higher expectations for ourselves...believing we should be super human...that we should be above the statistics. I scoff at the thought of average. Average, I ask myself? Who wants or lovesd or accepts someone that is average? I have to be amazing. I have to be brillant, stunning and strong...meeting the expectations other don't even know that they have of me. I feel abandoned and alone. I feel like I have failed and as punishment Magnolia Creek is sending me away...once again I feel like the problem no one really wants to deal with. So I have a choice. I can crumble to the ground...overwhelmed by the intensity of the feelings...but honestly where will that get me? Or, I can stand beneath the weight of a heart that feels too heavy to bear. I can keep moving forward, even when im not sure if the effort is worth what is on the other side. I am exhausted. But if I don't choose to fight for me who will? So what I want to do is react to the circumstances before me. I want to say its not fair and its too hard and that I hate life...I want to say screw it all. I really do. I am so tired of the shit that life brings with it. Am I allowed to say shit in this? Hmmmmmmm. But I am. There are times i just don't see how its possible to keep going. But still I choose to. I don't have any other choice. I wish something would just come easily. I wish something would just fall into my hands...but what would i learn from that? I know that the testing of my faith bring with it lessons that help me grow closer in my walk with God....its just hard to be thankful for the pouring down rain in the midst of the storm.
Jesus, hold me. Walk with me....I need you more then I ever have before.