Everyone loves this motto. Fake it till you make it, that’s the name of the game. Put on a fake smile and get through the day. The more I smile, the happier I am, right?
At this point last year I was excelling at my job, I had great roommates, great friends, a great boyfriend, I was working out and eating healthy. I was doing everything I was supposed to in order to be happy. So why wasn’t I? Why was it so hard for me to get out of bed unless it was going to the gym at 4:30am? Honestly, I don’t have an answer for you. I don’t know the point at which my depression started, because I wasn’t able to even recognize my depression until months later.
It’s better to feel numb than it is to feel guilty.
I faked it till I made it. And then I made it… and I wasn’t happy. What was wrong with me? That’s the question I asked myself over and over, until I got too tired to ask it anymore. The guilt for not being happy with my life drove me into a spiral that almost killed me. That urge to feel nothing at all in fear of feeling guilt instead.. that’s what I capitalized on. I did everything in my power to continue only feeling ‘happy’ and if I couldn’t be ‘happy’, I would be numb instead. So when did I convince myself I was happy? When I was eating healthy, working out, dieting – I was in control of these aspects in my life and thought that these were the missing pieces of my true happiness. But the more I continued to eat healthy and workout, the less adrenaline I would feel. So each time I did this I would increase the level of intensity – how much more can I restrict? How much more can I workout today? How fast can I run? How little can I eat? Day after day, this cycle continued. And that’s where the eating disorder started.
‘Why don’t you just eat more?’
PLEASE SHUT UP. Do not tell me to just ‘eat more’. Don’t sit there and criticize me for ‘choosing not to eat’ because I ‘want to be skinny’. This will probably be an entirely separate post because I can’t express how pissed off I get every time I hear something along those lines. I didn’t choose to become Anorexic. I wasn’t not eating because I don’t like food. I love food. I love cheese and pasta and pizza and potatoes and carbs and sea salt caramels. But it’s NOT ABOUT THE FOOD. I don’t know how many times I have to say it for people to believe it. It’s about the power and control I felt over the food and what I was putting into my body. That power and control that I first felt when I changed my diet to salads and protein shakes, cut out sugar, cut out carbs, cut out snacks. I couldn’t feel guilty about what I ate if I didn’t eat. And eating salads and drinking protein shakes combined with an intense workout regime? I felt invincible. I wanted to feel that powerful and invincible all the time. So that became my life. Wake up, workout, fake a smile, restrict, go to bed, and then wake up and do it again. How far could I push it? What was my limit? Death? I was pushing myself closer and closer to the edge of a cliff. Would that have been the adrenaline rush I was looking for? Ending up in a hospital? I honestly don’t know. What I do know is that it allowed me to feel nothing but adrenaline. If I couldn’t be happy, I was going to be numb. And it has taken me a really long time to forgive myself for being such a complete and utter moron with that mindset.
‘Bad’ feelings and ‘good’ feelings.
Hate to break it to you, but I got this newsflash so you do too. There is no such thing as a bad feeling or a good feeling. They are just feelings and we are meant to feel ALL of them. You can’t avoid the ‘bad’ feelings in hopes of only feeling the ‘good’. I learned that one the hard way. I have bottled up every single emotion in the book my whole life. Growing up I had a difficult relationship with my family. I had constant outbursts and wasn’t able to process my emotions and it often ended up with some sort of punishment. I was punished every time I had an outburst, but those outbursts were the only times I felt like I could express myself. So overtime I guess I learned to keep everything in because it was better than feeling ashamed of my emotions. I learned I shouldn’t be mad because of ‘the great life I was given’, that I shouldn’t be sad ‘because your parents have given you so much’, I should only be happy and have a smile on my face to show everyone how perfect I was. That’s what I learned. And I’m not trying to sit here and blame my parents or anyone but myself. I refused therapy because I was too embarrassed and defensive and frankly just wanted to win that battle with my parents. I wanted to feel that control. But growing up in an environment where you feel like you can only show positive emotion leads to a pretty terrible coping skill of shoving everything else down. It’s something that I’ve been really trying to work on over these past 8 months of recovery.
Emotions are overwhelming.
Someone could have warned me that the second I let myself feel all of my emotions, I wouldn’t know what to do with them. When I started therapy it was like I was finally chipping away at this cement wall I had built up for the past 24 years, and the second I made a little hole, so much came pouring through. It really really hurts to have to forgive yourself for wanting to die. It really hurts to let in all of those feelings of guilt, shame, hate, anger, and sadness all at once. And it’s really hard to not hold any of this against myself. I can be angry at my past self, but what would that do? I could be sad that I struggle with an eating disorder, but what good is that either? I’ve thrown the tantrums, I’ve had the anxiety attacks, I’ve gone through a hell of a lot of emotions to be able to be sitting here expressing them to you. And the thing is, I’m not embarrassed by any of it. I let myself get angry now. I cry when I’m sad now. I let myself be vulnerable now. And guess what? When I laugh now, it’s a real laugh. When I smile, I’m truly happy. And when I have a bad day? That’s all it is. One bad day.
So what’s the point?
Why would you want to fake it till you make it when you could be enjoying the ride on the way to wherever you want to go? Why fake that smile and pretend to be happy when you could instead accept yourself and all of your emotions, and actually feel that happiness deep down? I’m by no means an expert on handling my emotions and I definitely don’t know all of these answers, but hey, baby steps.
Blooming into Myself 