Today I had my regular therapy session at the wellness center at school. The past few weeks have been really interesting and I am learning a lot about the origin of my eating disorder and the anxiety I have that triggers some of the ED behaviors. Two or three weeks ago, she made me talk to a child's chair as the child version of me was sitting there. It was such a powerful experience, and very emotional. I have never gone back to my childhood other than to reflect on some happy memories. I never took the time to go back and experience through a five year old's eyes what it was like having your parents divorce. I'm not going to whine about it, because it was the best decision for my family and things have worked out much better than a lot of kids who deal with divorce. However, I have repressed the negative feelings I had from when I was a child. I was five, things were changing that I did not understand and none of my friends were going through the same thing. I felt different from my friends. After I talked to "little me" Sarah (my therapist) asked me to sit in the chair and BE the little girl I was. Surprisingly it was not hard for me to go back their. It was so strange, my entire demeanor changed: I was ashamed, couldn't make eye contact and could not form clear thoughts in my head....nothing made sense. I was scared and didn't know what to think or what to say, things were chaotic. From that experience we were able to make some sense of why I am so controlling over certain things...I need to be in control of the chaos of life.
Today we started talking about why being small is so important to me. I told her how I always felt special for being the smallest in my family and hearing people comment on that. She brought up the idea that perhaps it is more about being childlike....totally makes sense. I dealt with a lot of grown up things growing up and things were so chaotic sometimes I feel like I missed out on being a kid some times, so now I try to be a child still and feel that freedom and carelessness. Being small makes me more childlike...it also makes me feel innocent. Which brought us to what I call "The Nightmare."
When I was 16 years old I was in an abusive relationship. Not physically abusive but emotionally and mentally abusive. He was the Ken of high school.....we will go ahead and just call him Ken. I would really love to use his name, but he knows who he is Anyway, Ken was a great athlete, straight A, popular guy. Being with him was like dating a celebrity. I felt like the luckiest girl in the world, like every girl wanted to be me because I was with him. I was already insecure of how I looked because the girls he went to school with were gorgeous and very put together, but he just egged on my insecurities. He would say things like "you need to work out more" or telling me that he has dated more talented dancers than me (dancing has been a huge part of my life since I was very little). He stripped me of all confidence in myself and my body. Not only that but his mind games and manipulation even stripped me of my innocence...the last piece of being a child I had left, and now it was gone. Ken programmed me into this self-starving, emotionless shell of a person. I was a little puppet on a string to him. All he had to do was pull the string when he wanted me and I would always be there, no matter what. It took me three years, being almost 20 pounds under weight and going through rehab to get him out of my life. The best thing I ever did for myself was to change Ken's name to ED in my phone to remind me of how sick of a person he is and how he encouraged me to slowly take my own life. Not anymore.
The scars he left me with caused me to take a few wrong turns along the way even though he was out of my life. His mark was left on my mental state and thinking process. It took me a lot of painful therapy sessions to deal with the things he did and said to me, but I did and I was able to erase his programming of my mind. He robbed me of my self esteem, body image, and my innocence but he will NEVER rob me of air in my lungs and a strong heart beat. I survived him and I know one day he will get what he deserves. He puts on a good catholic boy mask, but I know God can see past it :) His actions will not go unpunished and I can take comfort in that when I get down on thinking how much my life has changed because of the things he did.
So, to tie together the loose ends, what has been discovered from the hard work in treatment, is that I am on a mission for innocence, the freedom and carelessness of a child and to feel loved. I am starting to be more gentle with myself and to take care of the little girl inside of me who is hurting over lost innocence and the fear of chaos.
Stay Strong and Beautiful! <3
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