The rain and my mood seem to be aligned the last couple of days. I don’t know if it’s necessarily because of the rain, but I can say that I have been further down the rabbit hole than I have been since my fall and I am writing to try and escape.
I write for you, yes. I write to connect to you and to represent a minority that may not feel confident in being able to safely express themselves in a way that they feel understood. I write to remove the stereotype that is addiction, and that is recovery. I also write for me. I write for clarity, composure and sanity. I write to uncover and discover what’s really beneath the surface; not what I’m always feeling at the moment.
I know enough to know that this will pass. I have experience yielding me results that I am always OK, and that when I look back on this time in my life it would seem shorter in duration, lesser in intensity, and absolutely for my greater good. However, right now? While I’m smack in the middle of it? I can’t say that it feels that way.
This has been a long road, and I can’t even say that I’m even halfway “there” yet. “There” in quotations because what is “there” – returning to running and training and racing 50k obstacle courses? Returning to driving? Returning to walking with my legs instead of crutches? Standing on both feet instead of hopping on one? Going to the bathroom safely instead of tentatively so I don’t fall? Lifting household items and being able to climb on top of the counter to get those things out of reach?
This is not my fault. I hadn’t realized that I was slowly personalizing this situation, until I was being choked out. The idea that I did this to myself and could have prevented this from happening has been on the horizon. The idea that I am to blame and not doing the best job possible with the resources available to me is seductive. The idea that my body composition is changing not as a natural byproduct of not moving freely, but as something I should be controlling and better able to manage is loud.
I am already sensitive to body and food changes, having been a strong bulimic for many years and an anorexic for others; a compulsive eater, always. I used to use exercise as a means to relieve myself of the calories consumed, the anxiety barking and often to change the way that I felt in general. Over the years my relationship with exercise has changed dramatically, to feeling gifted and grateful to be able to express myself in that way, but not condemned to. My relationship with food has continued to change, as I learn that food is not the problem, but my response to food is.
What is changing more slowly, is what I think I see in the mirror. Some days are easier than others, as with all of us and our fluxing emotions, with or without a broken leg. But having a broken leg and the complete inability to move has thrown me for an additional loop I’m not appreciating at the moment, amplifying and dramatizing most. I feel soft, thick, and fat. I do not like what I see in the mirror. I do not like what I feel in my hands. I do not like how I feel in my normal clothes. I do not like that it isn’t changing for the better, and I am having a hard time straddling the middle that would be considered balance.
For somebody like me, not binging or purging or using means to change how I feel through food or exercise right now is a very big deal. I haven’t said “fuck it” and gone to Domino’s to drown my sorrows, while I have also not refused food to try and make up for what I think I see in the mirror. I have not hidden on my couch and refused to move at all, while I have also not created ways to burn calories that would be unnecessary. I have had several changes in my regular food plan, which I track by macros and total calories. I have made slow changes every couple of weeks, gradually reducing the day’s total under the guidance of a professional. I have not made reactive choices based on how I felt but have been open to needing to monitor my food and do what my body was showing me it needed.
This has been fucking hard. I am as terrified to be too full and binge as I am to be hungry and to not have enough. I am terrified to gain weight and lose my physique completely and need new clothes, as I am to be dissatisfied and hungry all of the time. I am uninterested in doing nothing, while I am also uninterested in repping out shoulder presses because I can do that. It would be easy to try and go to the gym, spin the aerodyne handles around or put my boot on a towel and row my left glute and back to death. It would be easy to half my calories, only to end up in the trash can by the weekend. It would be easy to wear sweatpants only, confiding in the comfort and looseness that isn’t real clothes. It would be easy to not bathe every day or to not answer the phone when it rang.
But easy doesn’t navigate the spiritual middle for me anymore. Easy doesn’t make me better. Easy doesn’t make me more available, more accountable, more whole in my way of showing up today as a grounded woman sharing the message. I am committed to doing this right, even if I hate most of the process. I am committed to sitting through my feelings, being down when I’m down and grateful I’m up when I’m up. I am committed to listening to my surgeon, even if I think it’s ridiculous that I still can’t put any weight on my leg or go do shit at the gym that would alleviate this tension I have sometimes. I am committed to doing the few circuit workouts my PT/strength coach created for me, and not running back to hypertrophy work and exhausting all known exercises to do every day to try and compensate for what I can’t. I am committed to not hiding in the safety that is my measured meals in Tupperware and honoring how I feel while also being flexible and going out to eat sometimes and letting people make food for me.
I am committed to being uncomfortable and staying the course, because I know that if I do, I will be that much better for it. I know that if I do, I won’t have anything to undo when this is all different. I know that if I do, my experience will benefit others. I know that if I do, the feelings will pass much more quickly, and I’ll stay connected even if it feels messy. I know that if I do, I just may have some appreciation for the body that I have, no matter what I think she looks like, and some grace to watch her change with the work she’s given. I may have perspective and want to keep the problems I think I have, instead of the ones I see floating around me.
Objectively, it’s just a body. Objectively, it’s just an injury. Objectively, I just had an accident. Objectively, this is just the space and time that I’m in.
But because I’m a human, it took an entire few pages of a blog to acknowledge that this can be objective, and to also acknowledge that I am OK. As a human being and not a human doing, I am OK. And if I am ok, then it’s likely to think that so are you.