AliKitten's Journal

So I like to write; love it, actually.  It's the best way I know to creatively express my true self.  Now that I have more free time I've decided to do more writing, and I got an idea for a creative piece about Ed. 

Until recently, I thought of Ed as the enemy.  All of the words I used to describe my recovery process were fighting words: struggling to stay on the meal plan, fighting to resist behaviors, feeling bullied into weekly weighings and beaten down by constant lectures about weight, weight, weight.  For me, this treatment plan hasn't been working too well.  So I got this idea that maybe Ed isn't an enemy, but a friend. Bear with me here; by 'friend' I don't mean a true friend, who loves and nurtures us and has our best interest at heart.  I mean the type of friend that most of us had at some point during our teenage years; the one our mothers called a 'bad influence' and desperately wished we would stop hanging out with before we ended up in jail or pregnant. The type of friend who got us drunk for the first time, dared us to shoplift blue eyeliner from Walgreens and had a much older boyfriend who smoked.  Pot.  The type of friend who we hung out with because being with her made us feel better about ourselves, at least for awhile.  It was a rush, an escape, an outlet, and a chance for a good girl to finally break free and do all the things she knew she shouldn't. 

Kind of like being with Ed. 

So how does one get rid of this kind of 'friend'?  Think back to high school - generally it doesn't work that way, because no matter how many bad things happen and how many times she hurts us and we end up crying face-down on the bed, we ignore our mothers' pleading and keep right on being her friend.  Why? Because without her we would just be ... ourselves.  

Instead, what usually happens is she eventually pushes us too far and we have a brief moment of sanity where we object.  Rather than following blindly, this time we assert ourselves and speak from the heart about what we know to be right.  Of course, we immediately regret this transgression, but before we can beg for her forgiveness, she is gone.  We are not fun anymore, she is bored and pissed off so she leaves us.  

I'm hoping this can happen with Ed, and this has become a new focus in my recovery.  Live my life, reach out, connect with the world, express myself creatively, and maybe Ed will get so pissed off at the new me - the boring one who is no longer such a ready companion for binges or 3 day miracle diets - that he will leave me.  Same net result, less of a fight along the way. 

So ... I started work on a creative piece to express all this, and I have - almost! - the introduction written.  I will post it when I have it!