choosing life.

Life has been... well, crazy.
Pretty boring, but hectic. And sickening, honestly.
Here's what my life has been for the past 8 weeks:

• Stressed with school work -- finals last semester and now I'm taking a 4-week session that has me SLAMMED constantly. Can barely spend time with anyone!
• Pretty much abandoned my relationship with God. Having a hard time fitting in time for devos or watching Joyce, and honestly, I've been a bit POed with God -- next bullet somewhat explains it...
• RELAPSE. Oh joy.
• Started with crazy binge-eating with finals, which led to weight gain, and then...
• Began restricting again. As usual, started out fairly innocently. Just wanted to lose what I gained during finals. But, of course, I can't do things in moderation, can I?
• So lost more weight. Got back into the fasting/binging/purging with laxatives and diuretics mode.
• Got down to about 6 lbs below the minimum weight my nutritionist wanted me to be (not to say too much about numbers, but BMI was about 19, which isn't underweight so a part of me doesn't understand why this has been considered "bad"-- that's the ED talking)
• The past week has been b/p non-stop, and now I'm back in my range, even though it's all in my stomach... yay for bloating

The results of this abuse has been pretty devastating surprisingly, since I've done this in the past and haven't felt nearly this ill. I've been getting very dizzy and faint, can feel my heart palpitating, nauseous, haven't been able to concentrate, getting really confused, feeling very out-of-it and spaced out, and very grumpy and moody. There have been times where I literally felt like I was going to die, which is scary.

So, I am trying to get back on track. Although I do want to be thin, more than that, I want to live. I want to be fit and healthy. I want a social life (even though it is minimal anyways lol). I want to be able to focus when I am in classes and when I am talking to people. I want to love my body, even though that's a toughy. And I want purpose in life. I know that life is about so much more than myself, my body, and what I eat. My life is about what God wants me to do and what He has created me to do.

You may not understand why I'm writing this, but a huge part of having an ED is secrecy and trying to sugar-coat how bad things are. So this is me reaching out and trying to get my life back. Here's a snippet of what I plan to do to get back on track:

• Get back to structured/regular eating-- make sure I'm getting the nutrients I need and try to let myself have foods I'm craving in moderation
• Be open and honest-- I suck at reaching out because I feel like a whiny baby. But at the same time, I worry about people trying to be too much in my business. So I need a balance in this area, between being super-dependent and shutting people out.
• Focus on taking care of my body and being fit and healthy rather than fixating on a "thin" image. Trying to be who the world wants me to be isn't worth the price. Along with this, I need to be okay being at the range my nutritionist has advised me to be at, even though most of the time I feel "fat" at that weight... bleh.
• Work on my relationship with God-- as hard as it is, I need to learn to trust Him, to rely on Him for strength, and to focus on Him rather than food/myself
• Figure out how to deal with my emotions/issues that led me to relapse in the first place, such as handling stress, managing relationships, dealing with low self-esteem, identity issues, etc.