3 years.

In the past three years I have gone through so many ups and downs. I've had several break downs and thought i was falling back into the place where I was before. In the past three years i've wanted to give up.. throw in the towel and just let it take over.
But i've also learned what it's like to wake up and love yourself. I've learned what it's like to go out to eat with friends and family and not have food control everything. In the past three years i've managed to become someone that isn't constantly thinking about the calories going into my body. In the past three years i've rebuilt my thought process when it comes to food and health.

When I first chose Recovery, nobody said that it was going to be easy. There were people that stayed.. and those people I can't thank enough for how much they've done for me and how much they've managed to help me through the times I wanted to give up. But I also lost a lot of people. There were so many people that left. They left without a reason and without a second thought.

I used to use the people that left as motivation. To prove them wrong. To prove that I could do it .. that i could be better. Three years later i look at the people that have stuck by me and believed in me every step of the way and I do it for them. I do it to prove them right. To prove to them that they didn't stay to watch me fall apart all over again.

Three years ago I hated myself so much that i couldn't stand to look at myself without breaking down into tears. 7 years ago, I looked at myself in the mirror and thought about everything that I could change. Today I look at myself and I smile. Today i look back at where I was and it's hard to believe that I've come so far. Today I think back to the times that people would ask me if i'd eaten that day. I look back on the things I used to do.. the things I used to say to get people off my back about eating.

In the past three years i've gone from slowly gaining weight back to not restricting anything. To the mind set that if i said no to anything I would end up back where i was before. It wasn't until this year that, that mindset was broken. It's been three years. In three years i've broken down, i've thought about giving up and letting it take control. But when I look back on it... I'm glad i didn't.. because if i would have given up and let it take over, who knows where I would be now.

There are still so many things that I struggle with, and some days are harder than others.. but the thing about mental illness is that it's a daily battle. You don't wake up one day and it's gone. Some days are harder than others. Some days you don't want to get out of bed. Some days getting up and getting dressed is all I can manage. Somedays I go to bed early and just sleep because I want it to end, I want it to go away. But that doesn't mean that I'm falling back into where i was before. One day isn't going to cancel out what i've accomplished up to this point.

Three years have gone by. It seems like so much time.. but in the long run it's really just a short period. This is going to be the rest of my life. Three years is just the beginning.