Seedlings of Solution
<<2003-02-03 - 4:15 p.m.>>

Here it is. I don't want to recover. Or, more accurately, I am having issues with the notion of recovery. As I get happier and saner (and, subsequently, thinner), I am also coming closer and closer to Normal.

I am not a fan of Normal.

This is what I wrote on the TF, which pretty much sums it up:

The last few days (weeks...) I've been giving myself hell about not being "special." And I finally talked about it with my therapist today, and she pointed out the ED link that I'd been ignoring: I am getting closer and closer to Normal. Recovered. And what I'm losing is the intensity of it all. The drama. The sense that every day is a highly charged emotional experience, that every interaction is a battle. I'm getting happier, sure, but I'm really, really scared to become content. I know, intellectually, that contentment is a good thing, a positive place, but right now I really just feel like I'm losing my edge, my drive. My sense of isolation, of being unique (and therefore special) is disintegrating.

And I've been criticizing my friends in my head, even though I know that they like me a lot, respect me, enjoy my company—know it more than I ever did with my friends in high school. I've been feeling discontented at my school, even though I know it's the best place for me. But I've been feeling like I want to go back—back to the cutthroat competition and the drama and the never feeling good enough. I want to go to an Ivy League school where I can compare myself unfavorably to everyone in sight and feel overwhelmed and insufficient. I want to go back to hating myself all the time, with vehement passion.

And that's just stupid.

But the question just keeps presenting itself: who am I without an eating disorder?

I've been eating disordered and overweight and angry and sad and isolated pretty much all my life. There's no "Mollie, before ED" to go back to. My ED has shaped me. And I guess this is cliché, but I just don't know who I am without it.

And I'm just so scared that what I am without it is worthless. Not special. No good.

Where do I go from here?

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