Recovery & Fitness

There have been so many people recently on the recovery networks that I'm a part of that are posting things about how fitness posts and fitness accomplishments have nothing to do with your recovery. That by choosing the lifestyle that consists of healthy eating and working out you're still listening to the voice in your head that controlled you for so many years.

Yes there are probably people out there that use it as an outlet, and that use it in an unhealthy manner. But for every person that uses it to help their ED there is one that uses it as a release of the negative energy that builds up inside. There is one that uses the gym as an outlet, and uses it so that they can visually see their strength.

The gym isn't something that i've turned to in order to control my food intake and calories burned. It's not something that i've used to change what i'm constantly thinking about. It's what was there when nothing else was. It's the thing that was there when I needed something to turn to. Something to help release all of the negative thoughts that built up inside. There are bad days and there are good days when it comes to recovery, and on those bad days it's in the gym that i see how far i've come and how much i've conquered.

Choosing this lifestyle wasn't switching from one addiction to another. It was about choosing life and choosing strength.

So for everyone in the networks that think that posting fitness pictures and transformation pictures isn't what recovery looks like.. you need to sit back and think about what you're really saying. Just because someone chooses a different path to find themselves and to accept themselves and everything that they are does not mean that their way is not valid. Your recovery journey is not the only way.

We all have our own journey. By telling someone that their chosen path to recovery isn't the right one could hit someone the wrong way and send them back down the dark path that we both know isn't the way we want to travel.

Two Years

I realize that I just posted something about a month ago… but it’s been two years. Some would say that the first little bit is the hardest to get through and it is. It’s hard because you’re facing all of the things you pushed away for so long. You’re fighting the voice in your head that is still stronger than ever. It’s hard to let people in and open up to them because you’ve been hiding from it for so long and lying about it. The beginning is hard… and it does get easier.

But there are still times that it’s hard all over again. It may be two years since I realized that I needed help but there have been several things that have set me back. It hasn’t been an easy two years, and it hasn’t been a cake walk at any time through out these past two years.

One of the hardest things to get through was when he passed away. My grandfather was the only person that didn’t make me feel like I had to be perfect… I already was to him. I was already perfect; there was nothing to change and nothing to improve. If I had been able to see myself the way he saw me things would have been different. When he passed away, it was like everything froze. There wasn’t anything I could do to make the voices stop from coming back… and there were times that I couldn’t eat. It made it easier to make excuses… but it wasn’t overly long before I realized what was happening and I got back on track. The thing about recovery is being able to face your fears and accept yourself for who you are. It’s not perfect and it’s not easy… sometimes you need to do things by yourself and other times there will be people there to support you, but either way it’s going to pass.

It’s been two years, and thinking about it now it’s hard to imagine that the time has passed. This time two years ago I couldn’t stomach anything without wanting to cry. Two years ago, I was more worried about how many calories I was consuming rather than what I was consuming. I was more worried about being perfect than being happy.

In the past two years I’ve managed to mend so many different relationships… but most importantly my relationship with myself. Two years is a huge milestone when it comes to overcoming something you’ve battled with and fought with for years… but everyday is another milestone.
Everyday I wake up and don’t push away food when I’m hungry.

Everyday when I look in the mirror and don’t want to cry.
Everytime I open up to someone about I feel.
It’s not always the big things that matter… but the smaller things that you don’t think about as much.

There are still so many things that I have yet to be able to do, and there are still so many things that make me think about the reasons I stayed quiet for so long. There are things that people say that make me understand why I didn’t say anything... and that make me want to continue to be quiet. For as many things that make me want to crawl into a hole or under the covers and hide away from the world there are just as many if not more that make me realize I need to speak up in order for others to understand they aren’t alone.  

Mental Illness isn’t something to joke about and it’s not something that should be criticized. There are so many different types of mental illness and yet people think that they aren’t there… that it’s just a phase. If it were just a phase , I would have been over it years ago… years before it got as bad as it did. If it had been just a phase I wouldn’t have notebooks and journals filled with the things I couldn’t say out loud.

So what have I learned in the past two years... 

-- Recovery isn't perfect and maybe you can't be "fully recovered". Maybe the fear of letting people get close enough to see the things you hid for so long will always be there... the fear that if they get too close it could trigger something may stay. But sometimes you need to let someone in, let go of the fear of being judged all over again, because they could surprise you. There are people that will judge you the way you thought they would.. but there are people that will surprise you and do the opposite. It's not perfect and even if it has been months or years there are still going to be hard days that you need someone to talk to. Just because it's been a certain amount of time doesn't mean that you're alone.

-- Most importantly... It wasn't my fault. I didn't choose it, but I did choose to better myself. I did choose to speak up and ask for help. 

BRANDON MARSHALL NOT ALLOWED TO WEAR GREEN CLEATS

As many people know the NFL along with several other sports deck themselves out in Pink throughout the month of October to raise money and awareness for Breast Cancer. Breast Cancer Awareness has sky rocketed over the past few years, and there is no reason at all that it shouldn't continue this. I think that having professional teams , college teams, and even high schools teams wear pink is a huge step to helping raise awareness.

However what I don't agree on at all is the fact that Brandon Marshall was told he couldn't wear green cleats for Mental Health Awareness. Mental Health is something that gets pushed to the side all of the time because symptoms aren't seen and people don't talk about it. If more people to support Mental Health Awareness and build the overall knowledge on the topic than more people would speak up.

I personally lost a lot of respect for the NFL with this decision. Not only because I've personally struggled with mental illness but because I know that I may have gotten help for my self, but there are SEVERAL others out there that are fighting it alone. There are many people out there that think they are alone and that people don't care. The NFL is a huge organization and I think that they should be taking a stand for more than just one or two causes.

Yes there are reasons they are strict with their uniform. Yes they have a uniform for a reason. But don't you think that the NFL should acknowledge the fact that there are millions of people world wide that are suffering from mental illness? Should the organization not realize that their players have a higher chance of mental illness than things such as breast cancer?

And my final thought/fact to leave you with:
Cancer patients have an 80 percent chance of living. 1 in 5 people with an Eating Disorder (a mental illness) will die.

Break the Stigma.