It's Been A Real Shit Show - And That's Okay

It's been 3 months since I first published this blog. I promised myself the day that I posted my first article that I would use this space to document all of the growth along this "road towards healing." I haven't posted anything since then. I haven't therapeutically written anything. It was a complete load of bullshit. I wanted this blog to be a safe space for me. I wanted this blog to serve as a place where I can be messy. Instead, I've tricked myself into thinking that growth means putting your best foot forward and moving on to bigger, better things. This wasn't meant to be a blog where I'm the poster-child for self-growth, but that's how I've been viewing it - hence, why I have yet to write anything new on here.

I was wrong. While growth can mean putting your best foot forward and moving onto something better, it also can mean reveling in your discomfort. I failed to acknowledge that growth also includes pain. In fact, it requires it. Growth requires us to be uncomfortable, to not only take a step forward, but also to stay where you are and bask in the messiness of it all. Shit, you're guaranteed to take a few steps back too. It is not pretty. It is hard. It is failing, then getting back up, and then failing three more times after that.

I've taken a few steps back since my first post on this blog. I didn't want to document my failures. Who the hell wants to be reminded of how much you've failed? By breaking a promise I made to myself to document this journey, I was allowing myself to avoid the pain that comes with growth. I was inadvertently putting up some bullshit facade where everything is fine and fucking dandy and advertising some fantasy journey where I don't struggle. I have been struggling. That's it, that's the tea folks. Since January, I have been having a rough ass time. That's not to say that God didn't sprinkle some happy days in there for me along the way, but it's been tough. I have had some bad mental health days as of late - and that is okay. It is okay that this journey has been filled with a series of military-grade speed bumps. It is okay that I have cried enough tears to supply a whole damn village water. It is okay that I have been struggling to keep my head afloat. It is okay that things have been absolute shit.

Say it with me: it is okay that things have been absolute shit.

Only a handful of people in my life know this, but for a good portion of my life I have struggled with an eating disorder. Well shit, cat's outta the bag on that one Michelle. No going back now! You heard it here folks, I have an eating disorder and as I've discovered these past couple of weeks: there is no such thing as a "full recovery." I will always have an eating disorder, and I'm okay with admitting that now. Some days are harder than others, but I have full faith in the belief that a month from now, a year from now, five years from now, things will be easier. I look back to how bad it was four years ago, and I find comfort in seeing how far I have come, and knowing how far I will go.

A few weeks ago, I picked up my friend to go on a cute little trip to a coffee shop in Dallas. When I went to pick her up, she got into the passenger seat of my car and asked me, "How are you?" like any normal human being does when engaging in normal human being conversation. Instead of replying with a simple,"I'm good, you?" she was met with an outburst of sobbing, me screaming "I AM HAVING A BAD MENTAL HEALTH DAY!," more sobbing, and a plethora of snotty I'm sorry's that followed after.

Needless to say, it's been a real shit show the past few weeks.

My friend was understandably taken aback by my aggressive sniffles, but she did what she does best: let me cry in her comfortable presence. I don't know how else to explain it but "comfortable" seems right. She let me cry, she let me take my moment for as long as I needed, and at no point did she make me feel sorry for it. I felt okay getting snot all over my steering wheel, and I felt okay revealing that I was in fact, not okay.

The weeks prior, I hatched a plan to treat myself better this year. If you read my last initial post on the blog, you'll see how determined I was to embark on this journey of self-love and growth. I even drew it out on this big board in my bedroom: practice self-love, eat healthy because you want to be healthy not because you want to be skinny, intuitively listen to your body and eat when hungry, don't pay attention to the number on the scale, work on being healthy, talk to yourself more nicely. These are just a small list of things on my board, but I was ready to finally be rid of this eating disorder shit, to be rid of the unhealthy obsession with weight, to finally breathe an air of relief because the inner voice in my head isn't telling me that I'm worthless if I indulge in that piece of candy. I even created a schedule: vegetarian or pescatarian diet on the weekdays, eat whatever the hell you want on the weekends, no eating past 8 PM. It was great, until it wasn't.

The night prior to my snot-filled breakdown in my car, I sat in a Taco Bell parking lot for 3o minutes debating whether or not I should buy food. I had just gotten off of work, it was 11 PM. It was past the 8 PM mark I set for myself, but it was busy at work and I didn't get a chance to eat anything besides the lunch I had at 12 PM that afternoon. It had been 11 hours since my last meal, 11 hours. Here I was arguing with myself in a fucking Taco Bell parking lot. I decided to go home. Then, I proceeded to have a meltdown because I realized that I was slowly spiraling back into my old ways. I felt defeated. I felt exhausted. All of the work, all of the time, all of the effort I put in the last four years in order to overcome this eating disorder was all going to waste because I was conveniently using my schedule to not eat. This was exactly what I was trying to avoid, but here I was subconsciously using it as an excuse to fall back into my old ways. If I thought about my body for too long, I still hated it. If my friends asked me to go get brunch, I hesitated. I felt myself spiraling. It was crushing. My world was caving in.

I was also being a dramatic ass bitch and letting that stupid inner voice control me again.

So I slipped up, I had a bad night, I engaged in unhealthy habits again, so what? By listening to my inner voice, by giving into the notion that I have somehow failed so badly that my work up until this point is wasted, I completely dismissed all of my progress. I am allowed to slip up. I am allowed to take some steps back. I am allowed to feel like my world is caving in. But what I can't do is take away my damn brownie points for getting where I am today. I am here. I have made it here, and that is a feat in and of itself.

"The path to self-love isn't linear." Growth isn't linear. I will fall, I will scream, I will cry, I will feel my world caving in, I will want to quit, I will only have the energy to just be alive somedays, I will laugh, I will find joy in the little accomplishments, I will check off goals, I will fail to meet some goals, I will break down, I will be lifted up, I will take some time. We all just need time. Let's be patient with ourselves and in the end, we will have grown.

And when shit hits the fan again, we will still be okay.