Kingdom of Love

i spent the day in what i would call "recovery". i've been here before. the day before i have binge eaten, then i cry about it, i go to sleep and then i wake up, remember what happened yesterday and spend the rest of the day trying to gain control again. this includes but is not limited to, crying more, telling myself that i won't binge again-i many even tell myself that i shouldn't ever eat again, i reach out to friends for support, i exercise, drink detox tea, search the internet for solutions, eat guiltily and fearfully, gather hope up around me that i can get better.
today, more than other recovery days, i spent A LOT of time on the internet. i don't know why i was surprised, but i was-to find tons of videos of women (and men) who like me, have a binge eating disorder. two of the women that i listened to most say they are free from their eating disorder. it is pretty awesome to listen to someone who does and thinks what i've been saying and doing since i was...i don't know-13?12?10? with seemingly no shame or embarrassment they shared the details of their battle, and what they learned in order to heal.

honestly, i am embarrassed to tell even my therapist that i binge eat. i would much rather say to her that i don't eat at all or that if i do, i throw it all up. actually, the times when i do throw up, i feel proud of myself for getting rid of some of the food. it becomes a win, even though it puts me in another disorder camp.
the act of eating itself is shameful and i have spent the greater part of my life obsessively feeling bad about it. it is hard to be poetic here. i am trying to write this in a pretty way but it just doesn't flow that way. there are some days that my eating doesn't feel gross, it becomes more about nourishment and mindfulness-BUT it also becomes more virtuous, more "good".

I AM OVER BEING GOOD
i want to just BE.

in an ideal world food would just be food and i would just be me. food would not have magical powers of destroying a day or saving a day, it would come satisfy hunger and then go away only to come back when hunger came again. it would not make me cry or keep my from going out to see friends. it would not keep my mind busy and instead i could think about how beautiful the day is or i could paint or read or love freely and openly.

there is one thing that everyone who has either been through this or just want to help in some way says the same thing: that i must journal.
as someone who is a pretty good writer and enjoys writing and has journaled off and on most of my life, I don't know why i have been so resistant to this seemingly simple task.
maybe i am afraid at what is going to show up on those pages? maybe i am skeptical that it could really do anything special for me? maybe i am just lazy? LAZY?
lazy. no, not lazy-helpless. no, not helpless, just self-loathing.
well, for some reason-and i will not try to over analyze why, this format feels possible to me. granted, it is certainly nothing like the prettiness of pages bound together, gleaming blank and ready to receive all that pours out. there is no lovely cursive handwriting, black on white, or sloppy slurs that aren't even letters or words after a few paragraphs. it is far less satisfying in some ways for sure, and yet-if this is how it's gonna come out, then so be it.
even though this is a blog i hope to have some privacy as a default to the millions of postings that are going up around me in each moment. i don't expect that my parents will stumble upon it and i assume that unless i tell someone that i am here, they would never know...

so with that undertaking of anonymity, i will embark upon constructing my Kingdom of Love.