out of answers

I keep waiting for words to fall out of my fingers. I keep hoping to magically feel the release of expressed emotions...and nothing will come. I feel like all the words have been used and all I am left with is the words that no one really uses...the miss matched savvy words that no one really understands...they complicate more than they bring clarity.




I was at work today, nannying for miss Ansley. As usual she didn't sleep much the night before and I was given the wonderful job of appeasing and playing with a child who wants everything and nothing all at the same time. The attempt at a nap failed miserably and by 5 pm this evening Ansley was laying on the floor in target sprawled out screaming. Her words had long since ceased and only screams and groans and growls remained. For awhile I kept getting frustrated with her, reminding her to use her words to get her needs met. She looked at me with her 20 month old eyes as if I had lost my mind...and maybe indeed I had. So in that moment I stopped, looked at that little girl who was driving me crazy, and scooped her up into my arms. One would think she would respond with thankfulness and love, right? Yeah not so much. The screaming got louder in fact and she flailed about in attempt to free herself of the arms that held her tight. I wasn't really phased. I struggled to carry her and the things we were buying all at one time but i managed to awkwardly proceed to the checkout. In exhaustion she gave in and clung tighter to my arms...laying her head down my my shoulder.

It is funny that I find so many parallels between myself and this sweet almost 2 year old. She so blatantly freely expresses the feelings I make look so tidy and neat. I fall apart behind closed doors, when I can hide from the world, where no one can see the shame of my failure. Now it was never that Ansley had failed at anything. Ansley was simply over her capacity. She was capable of expressing her needs to a point, and than when the exhaustion set in...when her lack of sleep and inadequate nutrition and irritation with a new baby brother being born all came to a peak she lost her connection to what she wanted and what she needed. She had no clue what she wanted or needed. All she knew was that she was in distress and that she was mad about it. She began to fight everyone and everything...in attempt to make her world stop hurting. She didn't need me to wait until she figured out the right words to express what she wanted. She didn't need me to explain to her the reasons behind my decisions. She needed me to put down the other things I was carrying, get down on the floor with her, and scoop her into my arms. She needed to feel safe in the midst of not knowing any of the answers.

I'm not sure exactly how this translates to me. I'm an adult, I don't need to be carried. I know better than to lay on the floor throwing a tantrum...but some days I wish i was brave enough to not care...and to express how I am really feeling. I'm sure some would say the translation is my need to be the "grown up" Bethany and come in and metaphorically pick up that little girl inside myself and take care of her. The problem is that I don't see the little girl Bethany laying on the floor sprawled out, angry at being on the ground and angry if I have to stand up...I see me. As myself. Totally unsure of what to do. I don't know, I guess it just is the picture to explain the feeling inside of me that lacks words. All that is left is suppressed screams and censored growls. All that is left is the silence...is the smile that convinces no one.

I don't know what to do. I don't know how to make it to the next point on my life map. I don't know how to reconcile the feelings and the memories and my relentless faith in Jesus...and the exhaustion that has set in. How long do you fight when it feels like the deeper you go the worse things become? How do you keep pressing forward when there is no sign of light at the end of the tunnel? I know the answer is that you do it by moving with courage. I know that you keep pressing because the only true sign of failure is ending the battle in retreat...that forward movement in and of itself is victory. Maybe the lack of words and the fallen posture aren't the worst place to be. Perhaps its when we have lost all words and lost all fight that we lay broken and mold-able. Perhaps its that when all of my answers run out that I am suddenly able to hear the Lords voice. Its when my best attempt has failed that I maybe become willing to listen to the voices of those who believe the light is coming soon. I ran out of the "I know better"...and I have been left with the broken realization that I really don't know the way out. The only thing I cling on to is that God does.

So tonight I lay broken on the floor, exhausted...trying so hard to figure out what will pacify the swirling of my mind. But instead of numbing out I lay in silence...deciding that sleep will bring morning and morning new light...new hope...new joy...new perspective.

"I don't know much, that much is true. The queries are endless, my answers are few. But life has caused me to conclude, I can face what I don't know by singing about what I do." - Ginny Owens

the war of heart and mind

Sometimes I wonder if the feeling I am experiencing has a word to describe it. It has to...yet there is nothing I know of to explain accurately the way I feel. Its the feeling when you are searching for a word and you know that you know the word...you just can't place it. So often I feel like my heart knows the word but has no capacity to expound on it. Its familiar. Its like a blanket that covers me when its 98 degrees outside. It makes it hard to breath, hard to concentrate, hard to experience life. I am awake and I am feeling and I want it to stop.

Acceptance. It sounds simple enough. I mean if something is true there really is no point in pretending its not. Something is or it is not. End of story. Or so I thought. I have actually found that I am the queen of denial...however I am often times even in denial about being in denial. My heart and my mind are so separated. I can know something as truth in my logistical structured thoughts...and yet deeply believe at the core of who I am that it is completely false in my heart. It doesn't seem possible...it really doesn't. I wish I could explain it to you but that in and of itself would make me uncomfortable because I would have to logically make a decision...which will pull at my emotions which convince my brain that whatever it has decided is a really bad suggestion to rely upon because my heart can't fathom life that way. So my heart tells my mind that what happened didn't happen and for a moment there is peace. For a moment I am content to know that all is well and nothing bad happened...it only happened in a world that seems disconnected and out of reach...a mere figment of my imagination. Its quite confusing. The worlds start to collide and you don't know truth from imagination...you can't tell your heart how to feel because you don't know what to believe. You can drive yourself crazy.

I have been challenged by those walking beside me to listen to the truth my body is communicating, even in moments when its unaware of what we are trying to "figure out." Especially when its unaware of the logistical battle going on in my head. Something happens and my body responds. Loud noise. Over bearing man. People screaming... it all sparks something within me that I am suddenly unable to silence. My eyes see past the present moment and stare into a picture of the past...unaware that the past is actually not the present. It feels quite similar to the war of my mind and heart. Two contradicting situations, reality and past, stand before me and I am challenged to pick which on is truth...and they both are equally real to me. I feel crazy. I feel like I am losing my mind and am dabbling in pain that should always be left where it currently stands...in the past. When you are 3 years old how do you know what is real and what is a dream...how do you know if you are 27? When you see two pictures before you how do you decide which on is right? Everything sounds and seems obvious until the tide has pulled you under and you don't know which way is up. They say when you are pulled under by the waves you shouldn't panic and frantically choose a direction. You should allow it to take you to the bottom so that you can get out of it and then swim back to the top. Ride it out and let the ground be your base of reality. It sounds easy enough, but when you are sucked under out of your control the natural response is to panic and fight...the problem is that fighting will rob you of the strength you need to swim back to the top.

So I know I have to stop fighting the never ending war between my heart and my mind. The best vantage point is never in the middle of the fight. There comes a point when evidence determines a verdict. The heart no longer has a say in what it wants to be truth...because truth remains, unwavering. To fight it is to place yourself in the midst of the undertow where you must wait it out, then hit the bottom, which is the truth you knew in the first place.

I guess I never expected the truth to arise such a brokenness within me. How could I have spoken the "truth" as a possibility for so long and feel so little...and then I see it as reality and it wrecks havoc on my heart. Nothing has changed...except my heart. I feel like I am standing in rags in front of a huge broken mirror...looking into a reflection with so many pieces missing. I see an eye here and an arm there and I see enough to know its me. Maybe not the me I am used to seeing...but when I look into that little girls eyes I see the memories only I could remember. I touch my hand to my face and she does the same. Believe me she pleads. Please don't make me stay here alone any longer.

Piles of Sand

It's been a rough couple of weeks. Adjusting back to Nashville after a week in California with my family has proven to be a difficult task...and has been a constant reminder that life doesn't always turn out the way we think it will. As children we are told stories of adventure and love. The prince comes swiftly on his white horse to rescue us from the evil that impedes our magical lives. We are drawn towards the happy endings and joyful celebrations that the bad has gone, and the good has come. And as a believer I know that one day that eluding novelty will become a reality. Jesus will return and Satan will be silenced and heaven will reign on earth. However, until then, we remain in a fight that doesn't always give us the ending we were raised to expect.

I was watching the biggest loser this weekend, which may not be the most helpful show right now, I know. But the episode I was watching was one in which they had a challenge to dig through these piles of sand to find a big brass ring that had been buried. Once someone found the first ring the other people had to go start over on a brand new pile. It's just sand, right? How difficult could it be? Oh my gosh, it looked awful. The absolute worst part of it though was when someone found the buried ring and everyone else had to go and start all over on a brand new pile. I realized that most of the time that is exactly how I feel. I feel like I am sitting on top of this huge mound of sand and buried beneath me is years and years of baggage. Failures, losses, heart ache and every other deep emotion has been bubbling beneath the surface for years now, only being suppressed by this eating disorder.

I bury that which I want to hide, protect, or pretend doesn't exist...and sometimes something fits into all those categories at one time. So, when asked to begin digging for these buried "treasures" in the heat of day without the shovel you have used for all these years..is daunting to say the least. So I started digging. At first not having the heavy shovel was freeing...its weight wasn't holding me down. However, my hands got hot and the sand was burning and the smell of death was all consuming. That shovel would surly come in handy at this moment, right? I mean I don't even have to use it to bury things once again, I just want to use it to deal with the pain of the moment...after all, I wanted to hide it for a reason. It didn't take long to find these items under pounds of sand. I shamefully dusted them off and tried to avoid all eye contact...dreading all the more the things I knew were still buried underneath. I didn't expect the pain to be so intense. I didn't foresee that something so old and so worn could possibly evoke so much within me. Its over. Its not happening any more. End of story. Right? For all intensive purposes the size of my pile of sand could easily be put into different mounds to look through. But after I pulled that first thing out I wiped my sweat and kept digging. Sometimes things came faster. I would find pieces that fit into a puzzle all buried together, a foot or two apart. I was stunned. Though I knew of many of the pieces the ones that I didn't know struck me hard. How can you bury something you don't remember? I didn't want to keep digging. I was tired and hot and worn out...and emotionally overwhelmed. But things will no longer stay below the surface. The bubbling will erupt and spill over and will ooze of things rotting below. So what do you do? Get back out the shovel and start piling the sand on top, hoping the bubbling will suppress what its containing below? Or in your exhaustion do you keep digging with your burned hands and feet, chancing that you the next thing you find could have the potential to destroy you? Uncovering things you never knew were buried to begin with is terrifing. There is enough that I do know about...I don't want to know anymore. Those are the why moments for me. Why now? If I have forgotten it why do I really ever need to remember. How do I know I'm not making it up? How do I believe I'm not totally crazy? How do I keep searching?

I am exhausted. I am tired of finding things below the surface that I didn't know about. I am tired of the constant heat and pain and work...and I feel guilty for some days desiring to go back. I guess the motivation I use to keep going is the understanding that the things buried beneath me aren't going to go away. At some point the bubbling ooze will reach the surface level and the only way to keep it down will be to get further and further into my disorder...until I die. Because it will kill me. It will kill you. Its not a beauty pageant offering a prize to the thinnest contestant. It lures you in, steals your voice, and takes away your life...while simultaneously convincing you that you will die without it. And eating disorder is hell. The pain of a buried past won't remain silent. It can't be contained by suppression...because it has shaped you and will continue fighting to be acknowledged so it can be healed. I have been digging for far too long to go back. I have uncovered more then I ever expected, and I know I have a long way to go. But if I give up now it would all have been for nothing.

If I told you I was super motivated I would be lying. More than anything I want to just tell everyone that I have reached the bottom of my pile of sand and have made what was buried shiny and new. I want people to be able to see a difference in me...in my life. I want to be somewhere I'm not as I pretend to be someone I am not...but not at the cost of going back to a life that really gives me no life at all. People ask me why I keep going...ask me what is "making" me do it. The only answer I have is that there must be more than this...and there is only one way to find out. So, in pure exhaustion, with no pride left, I keep digging...

Traffic

There are days when my predictability even surprises me. I was driving to work a week or two ago and I hit 5 o’clock traffic in my normal Bethany fashion, I start trying to find a shortcut. The thing is that I have been in that same exact spot on Hillsboro Road so many times and every single time I do the same thing. I exit 440 onto Hillsboro and I get into the left lane, because the right lane is always backed with merging traffic. I then proceed to the first light where the traffic begins. I hate traffic. I hate sitting still when I know I could be moving. I hate thinking about being late and thinking about not being able to get to where I need to be in the right amount of time. I start to feel trapped, stuck. SO, every time, I think it’s a good idea to turn left. EVERY TIME. But here is the problem. I don’t know my way around those back roads on the left. If I were to turn right at the light, I would have no problem. I know my way around those roads easily. So why do I do it? Because in all reality, in the end it will take me more time to try to navigate my way through the back roads then it would to stay in the traffic. But I hate holding still. I know by exploring I am bound to make a wrong turn and end up lost. I know it. I also know I will in the end find my way back to Hillsboro not all that much further than I was when I start the whole adventure.

So as I was once again doing this on my way to work today I started to think about how this parallels so much in my life. You see every single time I take that left turn I really think that this will be the time that it IS shorter and I WILL figure out a new short cut. I really do. And yet, as evidenced by today, I end up back on Hillsboro 10 minutes later having progressed maybe a half a mile. It’s crazy.

The first thing I feel like this shows me is my inability to withstand feeling trapped and out of control. I am always amazed by the people who just sit still, NOT trying to find an alternate route. If I could communicate with them I would probably encourage them to follow me! ANYTHING has to be better than just chancing your luck and ridding out the path in front of you. But is that really true? Perhaps there are times in the world of driving and directions that we find a short cut. But in real life situations the outcome is actually quite similar to my experience today. I am distracted by my MOVEMENT and therefore I am mistaking movement for progression. I get uncomfortable by the discomfort in life. Let’s be serious, life hands out a lot of cards that are awful. Kid’s get cancer. Family members die. Jobs are lost. Natural disasters destroy years of memories in a moment. Bodies are abused. Life hurts and so often I think my answer is finding my own way out…instead of going through the painful event and getting to the other side. I am a “flight risk” as my friend Nikki would say. I get stressed out and take off. I don’t ask for directions or think through my decisions…I want out and I want out now. I can’t tell you how many additional years I have spent in this eating disorder all because I couldn’t withstand facing the pain of my past and my current situation. When faced with traffic most people turn on the radio, listen to their ipod, talk on their phone etc. Distress tolerance skills at their best…man I have been in way too much therapy. : ). I run. It doesn’t even occur to me that I don’t know my way through the side streets of my life. I actually don’t think through much at all in that moment. I see traffic, I know I want out, and I make my first possible turn. Now I am off the direct known path and I am all by myself…recipe for disaster.

The second thing that I found interesting today as I was lost on side streets was that it never occurs to me to get into the right lane and turn right. Isn’t that weird? I think so. I am sure Tiffany would love to psychoanalyze that…but I just find that so interesting. I don’t know what it is that stops me from waiting long enough to switch lanes and turn right. I know those roads only because I have driven them with other people so many times, and they have shown me the way. What is it about independence and self sufficiency that is so captivating, so alluring? I don’t know if it’s the stress of trying to change lanes when people are already trying to merge into that lane or if it’s the impulsivity of the moment…but it’s over and decided upon so quickly that I don’t even have time to think it through. How often do I turn away from the pathway that is being shown to me in order to do what feels like a quick fix?

It’s the “what if” questions that over take all rational thought and overwhelm me. “What if I get stuck in the pain and it lasts forever?” (What if I get stuck in the traffic and never make it to my destination?) “What if I look through things and find more pain and more loss?” (What if the traffic only gets worse ahead?) “What if everyone else see’s the real me and they run away and leave me totally alone.” (What if I am late to work and lose my job and have no way to provide for myself and no one wants me.) “What if…..” It’s crazy. I can rationally see and know that…and yet in the moment, I panic. SO, what do I do with all this wonderful insight? I don’t really know what to do…except to try something different. I face the “traffic” in front of me and consciously make myself do something different. It is the definition of insanity at its finest. I do the same thing over and over again expecting different results…and get frustrated when I am lost and then found only to find I am no further than when I started. It’s amazing how we play out big situations in our lives in smaller scales that reflect the core of what we struggle with. It’s not about the food. It’s not about the size of my jeans. It’s about feeling out of control and being blocked from what I feel is vital to “live.” Interesting…

Healing Pain

This week has been tough. I have been at my end more times then I can count...each time swearing I am going to give up. "Life in my eating disorder was better than this." I nostalgically think back to those days with a feeding tube in my nose, down my throat, and recall much more joy then I actually possessed. So, after giving myself a brief reality check, or at least throwing myself a small pity party, I stand back up and keep fighting. I don't really have a choice. Therapists would say quite the opposite. "Getting better is completely your choice." "No one can make you get better, you have to want it." Even though I roll my eyes even as I type out those words, I know they hold alot of truth. HOWEVER, in many ways I don't feel like I do have a choice. I feel like the choice is being made for me...because to do anything else would be choosing to torture the ones around me that I love so much...but also would be throwing away any chance of a future, a family, and the life I so desperately long for. Some days it feels like more then I can stand. Some days it seems like dying would be the easy way out, because living life in the here and the now is torture. I lived through all the crap that has happened in my life once...and it seems horribly cruel and unreasonable to have to relive it through flashbacks. To have secrets buried so deep for so long only to be brought to the surface, begging for words to be attached to what words could never express, is exhausting. How could there be so much silence for so long...and still there be such vivid pictures? How could I have "forgotten" so much only to have it resuscitated. And its hard to not have a clear understanding of what freedom or "living" truly feels like. Some days I wonder if maintaining the fight would take less determined perseverance if I knew what it felt like to feel free. Then at least I would know the joy of freedom will outweigh the pain of the fight...or the pain of facing the past.

It's quite odd how much Grey's Anatomy inspires me to write. I think the beginning and ending monologues are there to inspire thought and obviously to stir curiosity...but I don't know if its normal for them inspire me as much as they do. I personally like to attribute it to all the therapy I am in...what I won't admit is that it has always had this affect on me. All that said, I just finished watching the season premiere. So, bear with me.

So Derek Shepherd, a world renown brain surgeon, has just come back to working after getting shot by a killer who was loose in the hospital last season. Anyway, Derek came back and took on this patient who had a brain tumor that was inoperable... oh but not for Derek Shepherd. : ). The surgery that was required however was very invasive and would require an unbearably painful recovery. The had to literally cut the kids face in half and break his jaw to get into his brain. So, very very painful. So Derek is paged because the kid had come out of surgery but is in so much pain that he is FREAKING out. The pain was literally driving him insane.



So, this is what Derek says to the patient, Greg: "You have to listen to me Greg. This is the fight, this is the fight. The pain is going to stop and we are going to help you until it does. This is your fight. The tumor's not driving anymore, you are. You are in the drivers seat. Life that's in your head, you get if you fight, got it?" Then Derek turns to Greg's mom, who is a hot mess, and says: "This is pain. It's not a dying pain. This is a healing pain. This is a victory pain. You won. We won."

I got chills. Literally. You could see in this kids eyes the pain...the pain that was debilitating. Derek never denied the pain. The pain was freaking real. The pain was enough to bring anyone to hysterics. I know I may be reading into it but the pain wasn't weak. The pain was just that, pain. Awful, excruciating, make you go crazy, pain. They were pumping him full of morphine but it could only do so much...the morphine couldn't make his broken jaw go away. The morphine couldn't sew his tongue back together and magically reduce the swelling. In many ways the kid could have looked back to the time before the surgery and say he felt much better before...when it was hiding away, killing him slowly. It's the same thing for me I guess. The pain in healing at times feels much worse than the pain of staying sick, hiding from the secrets your mind doesn't want to feel. The truth of the matter was that the tumor would have killed him...and I believe this eating disorder would have killed me. And the removing of my "tumor" tore apart so much in me...and when they sewed me back together the evidence was finally there for the world to see. That which was hiding, sucking the life away, is exposed...and healing from it is just the beginning of the deep, heart breaking pain. The boy had a choice...let the pain of removing the tumor drive him to kill himself...or face the pain for days, weeks, months...maybe even years on end...believing that one day, life on the other side will be worth the fight. It was a choice only He could make...its a choice that only I can choose for myself. But what was interesting was that He didn't only address Greg. He also addressed Greg's mom. Greg wasn't fighting alone...he couldn't fight alone. With a pain and a hurt and a healing so intense, no one can do it alone.
"This is pain. It's not a dying pain. This is a healing pain. This is a victory pain. You won. We won."

the new puzzle

I am learning alot these days. Weeks, well months, on end of group therapy and programing will do that for you. BUT, one of the things I have learned in this last week is that I was a very different person when I was sick. I know, these revelations are amazing, right? : )But seriously, I was so far gone that I really had no idea what I wanted or how I was going to make it through another day...I was just existing, hoping that the next minute was better than the last. The thing that breaks my heart is that I pulled other people into it with me. People loved me enough to step into my broken world and convince me that there was a way out...and they were willing to help me find it. I look back in awe of those people because there was nothing about my life in those weeks and months that made me a good friend. I was self absorbed, depressed, and daily wanting to end life as i knew it. It was God's grace and love for me that He placed amazing people in my life to walk me out of that hell...and thankful doesn't even begin to describe my heart towards them.
So, where am I going with this? I guess what I am seeing or fearing these days is that I am essentially just starting to figure out who I am separated from the things I found my identity in for so long. I would never have said I found my identity in the eating disorder, but I think that's because I could never separate myself from it long enough to see they were two separate things. I guess in some ways I feel like I just woke up from a coma and years have passed and I realized who I have been living "as" isn't me. So what? Right? I mean that's great to some degree, isn't it? Of course! The problem is that it changes the dynamics for everyone. I don't want the same things I thought I needed before I left...things I did need before I left. Before I thought I had to have everyone all around me telling me what to do...because I really was incapable of making even the most basic decisions. Now I want to be making more decisions on my own. I want to spread my wings a bit and try out this whole flying thing...which everyone is all for. But I don't think people feel like they can trust me...which is fair. I wouldn't trust me either. I have found that I had everyone taking care of me before...and now I want friends who can be my friends. I guess I just feel like I am trying to come back to my life and fit into all the same molds and I get frustrated when everything feels so wrong. I still want all those relationships just as much...I still want to be doing all the healthy things I was doing before...but no matter what I try to do I don't fit into those exact molds. Its scary...for everyone involved. I'm not going anywhere or leaving or running away...but I have a feeling people will or have felt that awkward push and pull with me...and I have a feeling its not just with one or two people...i am guessing it is with everyone. I guess I am just learning that who I was isn't who I am...and I don't know if people will like/love/want me, the real me. But the crazy thing is that I can't go back. I can't will myself to go back to the molds I made for myself...I literally don't fit anymore. And, no pun intended, I think I literally out grew them.(OK seriously that's a little bit funny...I mean I gained like 20 pounds since I left...all needed, i know, but still. funny). But for real, I don't fit anymore. I believe the change is for the better. Ok I KNOW the change is for the better. But change is weird and it takes time to figure out new roles and how to interact with people in new ways...the poor people in my life have been through alot with me already and I know I am not always doing it with the most grace and sweetness possible. But I am trying harder than anyone may believe. All the painful things in my life have been dug up and all my coping mechanisms have been taken away...and I am so raw. So my guess is that I am not the most pleasant person to be around...which I bet makes some people wish I could just go back to the way I was before. I'm not going to lie, I have days I think I want to go back...but only because it would be easier.

These are all just thoughts...thoughts that stem from doing alot of therapy and looking at why I am so frustrated that I feel so frustrated when things here don't feel "right". Not in a "I need to move" sort of way. More in a "how do all these pieces fit together" sort of way...because my puzzle changed. Its like the pictures advanced forward a few scenes and now I have no idea how to make everything fit. It involves alot of the same things and same people...and yet it all fits together and feels very different. I thought I was going to get better and come home to a happy ending and it turns out getting better was just the realization that I am not the person I thought I was. And even more so that things are going to keep changing as I walk out this wonderful process people call life. I call it learning how to walk out the freedom that has always been there...I guess I am just now discovering it is mine. Jesus paid for it a long time ago...

Keep fighting

There are days when I feel paralyzed. I feel trapped within my skin...as if I am totally disconnected from this shell of a body and the life from within me is desperately trying to escape. I guess that's why running away never helps. I keep searching for that next thing...when no matter how fast and far I go, I am still there. It's not that I am failing miserably in my recovery. I actually feel like I am making forward progress. I think in some ways that in and of itself IS what hurts so much. I thought that when I reached this place in recovery I would feel more joy than pain. I thought I would laugh more than cry. I thought I would feel stronger...not more lost and uncertain than before.
I met with Tiffany today for one of our sessions. I was expecting us to discuss which days next week I would do the IOP program...and instead she told me that they just don't think I am ready to step down from day treatment. I wanted to fight it with the amount of time I have been in residential and day treatment combined as my defense. I wanted to give all the evidence of why I SHOULD be ready to go down to a lower level of care... and yet somehow those arguments only left me feeling more depressed. I guess the hardest part was hearing that what they really thought I needed was a PHP program...not that they won't help me and have me do day...but that the level of care that I needed was actually closer to a PHP level. Its frustrating. Don't get me wrong, I am the one making the choices on a daily basis. I am the one who puts each bite of food in my mouth. I am the one who is responsible for making the changes I have to make in order to really live the life of freedom God desires for me. And Renfrew is being wonderful. They are trying to help me get a scholarship that would allow me to do day treatment for another few weeks. It is such a blessing. It really is. I guess its always easier to see the negative. I feel like I have failed yet again. I feel like my best efforts aren't enough. I feel trapped in a life I didn't sign up for...I guess no one really asks for this to happen. I never thought one day I would have to fight so hard to escape what seemed like a harmless attempt to lose 10 pounds. I never thought the secrets of my past would haunt me and never really vanish behind the walls I so carefully constructed. I never thought my dreams would feel so far away.
I am so thankful that God isn't caught off guard by this. I am so thankful that my mess isn't too big for Him to handle. I am so in awe that He could still use someone as broken and flawed as me to further His kingdom. I have to keep reminding myself that He is faithful...that even the people He has placed in my life at Renfrew are examples of HIS faithfulness. What a blessing that people see enough fight and desire and effort in me to want to give me a scholarship... it helps remind me that even when I don't see the light at the end of the tunnel for myself there are people who see it for me...who have been there and have walked this path and know the signs much better than I do. God has never been out of reach. He has never walked away as I flail about gasping for air. With each turning of direction He fashions each step accordingly...to set me towards the purpose He has for me. I believe in total freedom. I believe it will come from HIM and HIM alone. So I walk by faith...believing with hope. Even though my plans for my life don't match up with my circumstances...I stand assured that His love endures and His faithfulness is unending. The creator of the universe has me in the palm of His hand. It's easy to be afraid. It's easy to try and take back control and fight for what I think I need...but where does that get me? So, I write this today and choose to stand in faith...believing that His faithfulness is greater than my fear...His love is greater than my depression. His hope is greater than my unknown. So i just keep walking...believing that freedom is a process... believing I am being moved from glory to glory...believing there will be a day when I am free. Until then, I keep fighting.