Almost 10 YEARS later update

UPDATE almost 10 years later after my last past. 

I have always loved my DearBody blog as writing letters to my body was so essential to my eating disorder recovery but boy oh boy what happened just 4 months after my last post almost 10 YEARS AGO that I foreshadowed in that last post in May 2011 sent me into the next decade of hell that is unimaginable and changed my life as I know it and still live today. It also set me up with a new body journey that I plan to write a new blog soon. But here is what has happened since that last post...

First, I was NOT wrong with why worries in May 2011. YES, my now EX-husband was having an affair(s) and YES, he was planning on leaving me (bank records show he started planning in JanFeb 2011) and did while alienating me from my daughter on September 22, 2011 with the the use of false Order of Protections and false accusations to get immediate custody which he continued in beyond extreme ways to continue the next 9 straight years of more severe false OFPs and more extreme serious disturbing false allegation until last January 2020 when the courts finally stopped him from filing anymore OFPs and other false charges. I only saw my daughter a few supervised hours but finally saw her once about 6 months ago after 7 YEARS straight of no contact with my little girl who is not little anymore and will be turning 16 next month. It was inconsolable grief and she will live the rest of her life coming to terms of the abuse and trauma she suffered at the hands of her own father. It’s not over for either one of us but having that visit with her 6 months ago  and stopping the false OFPS is hopeful and finally a step in the right direction to our reuniting hopefully one day soon that I still wait for her to reconnect with me again. Regardless to say my last decade was spent every day fighting as a pro-se lawyer on top of the 5 lawyers that all resigned saying this case was too complicated and outside of their legal scope of practice. That happens when there is a corrupt head family court Judge that until 6-1/2 years later and she left our case to become a Supreme Court Judical and I finally got my first fair hearing and finally got to cross examine this father that started the turn around in the courts and they finally stopped him. But still hasn’t gotten back my daughter yet. That story still continues...

The rest is the journey of my body and my recovery. 

At the time when I last posted in May 2011 I had been writing letters to my body since 2008 while I had been inpatient the 2nd time from mostly being anorexic then to be more specific later got diagnosed as bulimic non purging type meaning I purged my calories by restricting them. The eating disorder world has evolved so much since I first went into treatment back in 1999 and there seems to always be new diagnoses along the way. While I was writing my DearBody blog I had spent my time living tapped in a body I wasn’t used to and had gained a large amount of weight after being put on medication XX and was frustrated as hell that all my ED tricks didn’t work a damn and I could not lose the weight and kept gaining no matter what I did and it was literally the best thing that could had every happened to me but trust me I didn’t believe so at the time. But I had to learn to live in a body that NO I DIDNT LIKE and at the time while I hated every second of it I had to figure out a way to endure it and accept it that I know I was NOT really accepting it but I had to learn to be nice to myself and that’s when I created my DearBody blog and it set the foundation of my actual recovery that who knew would serve me all the years down the road later and where I am now today. I would say all the years of every kind of ED treatment and my DearBody blog got me as far as I could possibly get in recovery UNTIL THE DAY YOUR OWN CHILD IS KIDNAPPED THROUGH THE COURTS BY HER OWN FATHER and NOW something is more important than a eating disorder and ur life instantly changes and immediately repriotizes your life in a instant and that’s were recovering becomes RECOVERED in one second... and 12 years of every kind of intense therapy there was. Shortly after my nightmare began I went off that medication and within X months the weight disappeared but the lessons I learned while living in a body I never thought imaginable never disappeared and in fact 7 years later I took recovery into a new journey with just that....

As I stated earlier there was that point with ex that turned in the courts that changed everything but the 3 years it took until the courts finally stopped him were so filled with stress and anxiety mixed with the remaining most severe court cases/hearings caused me to start gaining weight again and no longer was I grocery shopping or cooking my own meals and started into running to the connivence store or picking up fast food as I DIDNT HAVE TIME because I was trying to finish putting this overall court case together that 5 lawyers couldn’t do to stop the hell from continuing on with my daughter.. and for the first time in my life I didn’t care I was gaining weight or how much I gained and didn’t try to lose weight. While it wasn’t particularly the healthiest thing for me to do and I proved I still have some left over black and white thinking it literally was impossible to do those last 3 years until he was stopped with that amount of anxiety that I couldn’t balance taking care of my body until it was finally over so I embraced it in a new way and decided to experiment with loving myself at being in this unfamiliar body the second time around as the weight gain compared to when I weighed XX from the time I weighed this much from the medication XX I was on. These last 3 years have been so important to healing as a human and learning to finally love myself as a whole person where I can be at any weight and realize that others will love me at any weight too. It has broadened me into becoming the most well rounded healthiest mindset I have ever had of myself. Notice I said most healthiest MINDSET I could be... because along with this healthy mindset the weight also caused me to have to go on high blood pressure medication. So the journey continues to now lose the weight that has caused me high blood pressure. Still a little black and white thinking because it took me until the ex was stopped and I finally saw my daughter 6 months ago after no contact for 7 years to finally be ready to go on this journey to lose the weight and the last 6 months to plan on how I am doing to do this with falling back into eating disorder ways. I found my plan on how to do this after a lot of careful planning and thinking that will work the best for me so I won’t be triggered to start restricting and although I have had a bumpy start and have had to stop and retry a couple of times because it made me fall right back to what landed me into ED therapy 23 years ago that YES, surprised me and scared the living crap out of me to go through what I fought so hard to recover from I believe now I finally got it and for the first time ever my goal is not to lose weight... it is to get off my high blood pressure medication which is a lifetime goal to have to never be on it for as long as I live. And yes, I plan to start a new blog about it. 

My Thought Chain

5.17.11.

Dear Body,

Hi. Long time it’s been since I’ve talked to you. X and I went to our marriage counselor today. Surprised that we go to one? I, of course like it. It helps solve many issues that we have. Which is only a few. Those same ones that occur in a marriage that don’t seem to go away. We are figuring them out which is cool. Talked about me doing a thought chain today. Well, we actually did one. Here it is…

This somehow amazed X that all these thoughts when on in my head. Funny. This is “normal” for me. This was a thought chain of when X came home from being out of town. I got scared because he was in a quiet moment and I took that as he was having doubts about us (I know, I know…just go with me here…) and our marriage. So I started crying. So, I worked my way backwards and figured out what made me start crying…it was I questioned X…because I was wondering what was wrong….because I was feeling fat (funny how this ALWAYS gets thrown in there!)….which was because I was thinking while waiting for him to get home about how he thinking about our relationship and wondering if he thinks I’m skinny enough for him because if I’m not will he leave me or go have an affair and wondering if I’m a good enough wife and a good enough mom. Certain traumas and issues latch on and then the feelings start in and ALL these thoughts were going on which lead me up to feeling so insecure and shameful so it was very easy to start crying and thinking that X's silence towards me meant something negative. When in fact….NO! – He was tired. See…this is how we work. He’s simple…I’m complicated. We’re working on it. I’m working on it. Things are good. Life is good. Recovery keeps moving just as life does. Am I happy? Yea, I think I am. Life is good.

Love, XXX

Dear XXX

4.3.11



Dear XXX,


Cheer Up. Grow up. She’s 6. She sees what she sees and only hears what she hears to know what she knows. She doesn’t have the feelings behind it, so don’t take it personal and knock it off. She’s 6 and is in the observative stage of life where she notices what’s going on and sees what is.


Really, XXX…you sat with your beautiful girlfriends today, and I listened to you describe how you use to abuse your body with anorexia ways. So abusive and full of hatred. You told your girlfriends that you could never treat your body that way again. I was so proud of you. YOU finally treated me the way I wanted to be treated. YOU talked about me like you cared and loved me. I was thrilled. I’ve never heard you talk that way before. That was this MORNING. So, this EVENING as your innocent 6 yr old daughter spoke her words, which were just words…you were already armored by your own thoughts and inner peace. You did it. You did not need to feel devastated because your size does not dictate who you are. I know you and I know you’ve had years and years and a actually a lifetime of body image issues and feel insecure with whatever size you have been regardless of you being smaller or bigger. You actually handled this well…for YOU. Others may of questioned it, with concern, but I…as YOUR body, am quite pleased. I have been through your abuse from your hatred and misuse and you actually did a really good job on not taking it out on me and I have to say that shows maturity on your part.


This morning listening to you was what I was waiting for our whole life. Don’t let what XXX said tonight get you down. You handled it well as a mother, and as a woman. You handled it damn well as someone with an eating disorder. You are well into your recovery and you should be proud. It’s not about your size XXX. You’ve always been the same person on the inside. That doesn’t change. Your size does not dictate who you are. I’m proud of you for standing up for me and talking about me in such a loving and caring way. When we are in this together and working together, things are so much better. Finding peace on the inside is so worth this effort, isn’t it?


Love, Your Body

Biggest Fear...damn.

4.2.11



Dear Body,


This will be my last letter to you. I guess I’ve been waiting for this moment for a few years now. Somehow I thought it would be a tad more traumatic than it was. In reality, it hurt far more than it did. My 6 year old daughter finally said the words to me that I never wanted to hear and feared more than words that would come from my husband about wanting to divorce me. Fortunately, the warrior I am, surprised as hell but not shocked because what else the hell am I going to do…have remained calm. As I heard my daughter say…”Mom, YOU are fat.” Not once, but twice…and then I said, “what did you say?” in a caring voice which was soft, only because I knew what I was hearing was “it”…and she said it a third time. For some reason, I get calm in the midst of the storm. I don’t know why but I do. I asked her “if that was wrong or bad” and she said, “you are fat” and I said “but that has nothing to do with it. Is that wrong or bad?” and she said “you are fat. Remind yourself this is the 6th time she has said it. Now, I am confused. Am I saying the wrong this to my child? She’s only saying what she’s seeing. She’s speaking the truth and I’m feeling like shit. But am I saying the wrong thing to my child? Are we on the same page? I’m still confused. I don’t know. She confused me. I confused me. I’m just confused. But still….I am the mother and I am calm and I explain how I am on medication and my medication has caused some of my weight. This was after she told me that I am fat because I eat too much. I told her no, I do not eat too much. Grrrrr. God damn it, I do not think anyone can understand how much I will never go down the anorexia road again. I am not ready to explain it but just this morning, I sat with a bunch of my wonderful girlfriends and I talked about how I could NEVER treat my body the same way that I treated it like I did. How I was so disrespectful to myself and hateful and wrong and it was so sad. Just a week ago, I was being so insecure with my body and I finally said to my husband, “would you rather me be “this way” or “sick?”…he said in a very serious tone, “like this”. He’s not joking around either. He saw the sick side of me. I knew the sick side of me. Only a few saw the sick side of me. That’s enough. For what ever reason I needed others to see that side of me, they saw. I don’t even know why they had to see it. I don’t know the purpose it served. Something deep and wanting to be hugged I am sure. I finally love you my body. I love myself. I am finally one. One in itself. I actually feel whole. I still have further to go and will still write more. But this chapter is done. Dear Body….thank you for giving you me back. The end!

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.

From The Inside Out.

March 22, 2011



Dear Body,


Good Morning. I was thinking over the last few days while I was making breakfast a few minutes ago and I was thinking of a scenario with my daughter that I was very proud of. One of those reasons that they make Moms for. A “Mommy Moment”. Regardless, I don’t even know what to say right now because I just paid myself the best compliment I have and could ever give myself. I honestly told myself that I am a good mom. This feels so good that I am crying. It took me 6 years and 23 days to tell myself this for the first time. That’s a long time to go before you tell yourself that you are a good Mom. I feel like some weight has been lifted off my shoulders. This is something that has been missing. Something that I, myself have been holding back and it just broke through. I felt some love come through and it sure felt good. Again…from the inside out. I actually felt love for myself. It happened.


Love, XXX

I'm On The Road!

March 21, 2011

Dear Body,
I joked around with the husband the other night about my weight and wether he'd rather me be like "this" (with my weight on the high end) or be "sick" like I use to be. He didn't think it was funny and said in a serious tone, "now is much better".
It got me quiet and has me still thinking about the question. I "use" to like being sick....when I was sick. I liked being very thin. I liked the bones, the empty feeling, the high. The feelings I don't want to fantasize about too much right now because I don't care to go down that road. But do I like being like this better? Do I have to choose? I guess I don't know how to answer that. If I HAD to choose, I can't honestly say I know how to honestly answer it truthfully. I don't know if I can be that honest with myself. Something is blocking me from answering it. Maybe I'm afraid I'll actually say "yes". "YES, I like being on the overweight side for xyz reasons". Don't ask me what in the hell, those reasons would be, lol. On the other hand, maybe I'm afraid I'll say "no". "No, I would rather still be sick and still would rather be on the sick side than this". I'm really afraid of both of those answers. I don't know if I even want to explore either one of them. I think the truth is, I don't want to be where I am now and I don't want to be where I was then. I'm still aiming for the middle. I guess that's good though...it's not all to one side (as in the thinnest side only) and I really do look at myself being in the middle. In the grey area...the balanced area.
I don't think I've mentioned in a long time where I am body wise. I've lost XX amount of pounds. It's been very slow. I believe it is due to my B medication that I was put on to help counteract the A medication. I sure wish it were faster, but then again, I've been dealing with this for quite a few years now and am working through the process of it. I have come to terms with the fact that I don't believe I could get through this any other way than the way it has gone. Recovery is such a long, long process...I believe for anyone, but certainly for me. It takes its' sweet ole' time and moves in its' own ways and understanding and I'm kind of along for the ride and just keep working my recovery as much as I can...taking breaks when I feel the need to...putting one foot in front of the other and trying to move forward and realizing that even when I seem to backslide, I'm probably NOT backsliding, I'm just moving sideways down the path for awhile looking in a different direction. I move slow and learn the hard way, usually taking the same message many different angles to penetrate to get me to learn and understand. I really don't think I'd be getting the same message about myself and learning to love me for who I am if I was anorexic thin trying to gain weight. For MYSELF...no one else, but myself, it's harder to go from being stuck in a overweight body to losing it and finding myself again from the inside out. I've got a lot further to go, but I'm on the road.