Fears.

They’re inevitable. Our fears may change throughout the course of our lives, but everyone is afraid of something. It could be a fear of clowns, of heights, of blood, of flying, etc., you get the point. Those aren’t the fears that I want to focus on, though. The fear that I’m experiencing is a fear that I don’t quite know how to put into words. I feel like I’ve been afraid of so much in the last few years that all I want is to stop being afraid, I just don’t know how. Like the fear has overpowered the strength and I’ve been working so hard to make it an even match again, and here we are. At break even. I’m at that point where you look your fear dead in the eye and finally face it.

I’m afraid that people won’t get the chance to know me for who I truly am.

For as long as I remember, I have always been an extremely energetic, loud, quirky person. As I got older, I tamed down a bit, but that side of me still used to come out when I let loose. But when I became numb, it’s as if I lost that side completely. Instead of that side of me showing through, it become a facade that appeared to be that side of me. Instead of being filled with energy and quirkiness, I was empty, pretending to be something that I couldn’t’ feel. And now it feels like I have been acting for so long that it’s hard to brush away the dust from that piece of me that got buried inside. But the thing is, it is coming out. The dust is slowly starting to get blown off and I can feel the moments where that energy shines through. It kind of feels like it’s in a dusty old box in the attic, and I’ve found the box, I’m wiping off the dust and trying to get it unstuck from the corner it was crammed into, but it’s perfectly configured to not budge without help. In the moments where I can feel myself coming out of this box, but the second I acknowledge it, it’s almost as if it gets pushed back down. It’s like I’m not in the moment anymore, I’m in that corner in my head reminding myself that I had kept that side of me safe in a box for years. It’s where the eating disorder says See Nikki, you didn’t feel this way when you trusted me. You weren’t afraid of anything. You packaged yourself up and let me protect you, and the second you break loose from me, the second you become vulnerable to all that I have sheltered you from.

It’s extremely counterintuitive.

I don’t know if anyone else reading this is thinking it, but I am. It’s extremely counterintuitive for me to say that I’m terrified that people won’t get the chance to know the real me, yet i push the real me down. The one who is open and vulnerable, kind, funny, definitely weird, and so incredibly loving. If I’m afraid that people won’t get to see that in me, then why do I keep shoving it down? Why can’t I just be? Why can’t I let myself be in the moment, let those pieces of me shine through? Honestly, that’s a great question for my therapist because I’m still trying to figure it out. I’m trying to understand the instinct that I have to protect myself from scenarios that I create in my head that are so skewed from reality. My defense mechanism and shell that protects me is overcompensation on anything else at my disposal. If I’m nervous or anxious about something, I overcompensate and become this loud, obnoxious, insecure person that I don’t know. It’s a way for me to try and ignore the feeling in the moment and attempt to cover it up and show others that I am not weak and anxious or sad – I’ve wanted to pretend that I’m always okay 100% of the time, and it became ingrained in me. When I’m in a bigger group setting it’s hard for me to not feel invisible because of my insecurities. And these insecurities are what my eating disorder attempted to numb away for me.

And that leads right into my next fear – what is life after the eating disorder?

I think I’m scared to fully let go of the control I let the eating disorder have, because it means that I can no longer avoid facing my insecurities. I can’t use these tactics to make myself push everything down and avoid the discomfort and pain that I’m afraid I’ll feel. I can’t shelter my true self, the one who is a bit naive with a big heart, from feeling like she isn’t enough. I can sit here right now and tell you that I truly do know that I am enough. That I am happier than I have EVER been, with a loving family, a loving boyfriend, and loving friends. I just want to fully be able to let them all know me for me. To let myself heal from the relationship I’ve had with my father for years, and learn to trust myself enough to where I don’t question my worth. Recovery doesn’t mean recovering from a relationship with food, it means recovering from a lifetime of shoved down pain, remorse, guilt, insecurities, coping mechanisms, and broken trust. And I’m scared of that. I’m not writing this blog right now trying to sum up all my fears and end with the solution that I’ve magically figured out. It’s to put these words out there so I stop going through this cycle in my head. I’m afraid of people not seeing me for who I am, but I’m also afraid of showing people who I really am. It’s confusing and complicated and something that I’m working to understand.

I’m ready to try and understand it.

For the past few months I’ve known these fears and I’ve gone through this cycle in my head, but I wasn’t ready to attempt to understand where they come from or how to face them. I wasn’t ready to face them. But I really do think I’m ready to do that now. After being with a group of friends on vacation over the weekend, and seeing the different connections that everyone has, everyone living in the moment, laughing from our stomachs until we cried – I don’t want to lose that again. Yeah, it’s hard re-integrating myself into a social setting because it makes me see how much I’ve closed myself off from for so long, but it’s so much more uplifting and exciting to get a glimpse of what life without Ed will look like. It gives me hope because the relationship that I now have with my mom, some of my best friends, my boyfriend after beginning recovery has deepened and blossomed into something I never would have imagined. A place where I’m voluntarily being vulnerable and feeling that vulnerability in return. And it feels like just a glimmer of what I’ll feel when I’m able to fully break free from Ed. I’m proud of how far I’ve come, but it’s not enough for me to just be proud of where I am now, because I’m not truly free yet. There’s a piece of me still clinging on to that safety net and I need to cut ties.