Everything I Needed to Know About Recovery I learned from "Buffy" & "Angel"

ANGEL: Illyria, the future can change here. You can choose a different path.

ILLYRIA: And be nothing.

ANGEL: And be what you are. Fighting to hold on to what you were... it's destroying you.

Many of you know that "Buffy" and "Angel" are two of my fave shows and I am to the point where I can watch an epidose and know what day I need to tune in again to see the one I really want to see! Like today's 1 PM episode on FX is the one where Buffy realizes what "death is your gift" means and makes the ultimate sacrifice to save the world or last night's "Angel" on TNT when Willow restores his soul (yetb again).

Anyway, on the TNT Monday morning episodes they are near the end of the final season and then will cycle back to the beginning. I have seen the episode where the above quote came from probably 3-4 times by now and I don't think that quote ever jumped out at me before.

Maybe it was because I was in the other room doing something and was straining to hear, maybe it is because where I am in recovery or maybe...nah...I think it is the latter.

I look at where I am...almost a year purge free and while I think about it all the time...almost 10 months SI free. Yet, at the same time, I can be honest and say it wouldn't take a lot to send me right back into the depths and not look back. The thoughts come and go because I won't dwell on them long (the longer I dwell...the harder it is to fight it off), but they are still very much ingrained. Plus, I am still not eating three meals a day...but I digress...

There are times, just like Illyria, I feel like I am at a crossroads. There is a lot of romanticizing the past. EDs are NOT glamorous nor is cutting your skin so you bleed...but there is this mindset that I had more energy when I was throwing up everything I put in my mouth and when I was not sleeping. Then there is my favorite...cutting helps relax me so I can sleep. Okay, that one is true...but what a stupid reason to be self destructive.

Angel tells her she can choose a different path...but in doing that Illyria would be agreeing to becoming less "powerful" than she had been, more in control and other than her look be like "everyone else." She says it would make her nothing. I know that a lot of people can relate to that. I've said it and I have heard it from others...without the ED who am I? I am nothing without it. Becoming the disease kind of sneaks up on you and I know that I denied it for a very long time...but I still am trying to figure out who I am without my "safety net."

"Fighting to hold on to what you were...it's destroying you." I think that line is what hit me right between the eyes. There are days where I deny hunger because I can't let go, there are days where I try and figure out a way I can be "normal" and yet keep some of the behaviors . And, I am sorry to admit, there are days where I don't CARE if it destroys me. All that being said...if I don't let go and look at the issues that still drive what is left of the behaviors...I will always BE at that crossroads and always be on the cliff of destruction.

Not that this realization makes it any easier to plop down on Rob's couch tomorrow and be ready to delve into the muck after a few weeks break...but it is incentive to not stall and only talk about going to the 49ers training camp today!