One More Thing...

Just wrote this letter to @VoiceInRecovery (twitter) and wanted to share it here too

Dear Body,



A little over a year ago I started writing you letters as a type of last resort. Due to a million different reasons, some mine and some due to medications…some due to just plain giving up and depression, I gained a large amount of weight and have carried it around for a few short years. My idea was to get to try to love you. Because I hated you. I physically did NOT like you. I didn’t like how you looked, how you moved, how you acted. I despised you and I realized that I could not live with you any longer. This was a far distance from a few years earlier back when I was unhealthily underweight after the birth of my daughter and anorexic a few years earlier back from that. I’ve also gain large amounts of weight in the past too, but had always lost the weight by starving and restricting and falling into anorexics patterns.


Hating myself physically at this weight comes easy. Although I did not have a desire to be anorexic any longer (my 13th year of eating disorders recovery was paying off) I did not like being at this heavier weight either. I have spent the last year getting to know you and building a relationship with you and trying my hardest to be kind to you, when it’s the hardest thing in the world to do. I wanted to be angry at you and be frustrated at you. I felt betrayed and hurt that I was trapped in YOU( my body) and not able to break free from YOU. I could not get away, no matter how hard I tried. Little by little, as I wrote letter by letter, I gained a relationship with you. I learned to get to know you and to be kind to you and listened to you too. Although I still wanted to change the outside of you, it was getting better as OUR relationship was getting better. I felt happier. Funny though…still at my heaviest ever, I was the happiest ever. I was beginning to see that it really isn’t about the weight. Still, I wished for the outside to change and knew that I had more work to do.


Not too long ago, I quit placing emphasis on my weight because that really was not becoming the focus of my journey. There is still a slight focus on the weight (hey, I’m still working on it!) but I started merging myself and YOU into just one person…not separated as it’s been our whole lives. Somehow we have become one and it’s myself that I feel I am working on now. I am finally me! This had nothing to do with weight. This had to do with becoming a whole person and finding out who all of I am. This had nothing to do with weight! I found myself from the inside out.


Just this morning I gave myself the best compliment I have ever given myself in my entire life. I told myself for the first time that I was a good Mom. That took me 6 years and 23 days to finally believe that I am a good Mommy. That’s a long time to go without believing in yourself. I felt self love this morning. I finally learned to love myself regardless of what my weight is. What a journey this has been. I wish I hadn’t waited so long, but it’s the feeling is worth all the hard work.