On My Way

A lot has been happening in my life lately and my time has been limited. For the sake of my personal issues, that is both good and bad.

I am, if everything pans out asap, starting graduate school Friday. My stress level has already gone up and the question marks have started popping up in my mind as usual. Some mornings I think, "What am I doing? Can I handle this?" Other mornings I'm more excited than words can express.

I'm finding that the stress is actually a positive thing as my reaction to it is showing me areas I need to improve. I don't handle stress well and some pessimistic switch turns on that causes me to rant about how horrible or unfair life is. Or, I cry. Regardless of my reaction, I'm still alive. Therefore, I'm working on taking deep breaths and realizing that I can in fact do this. If I can't, it's only because of me.

On the flip side, as I prepare to enter this graduate program leading to a Master of Education in Counseling and Human Development with a concentration in mental health, I have become more aware of how much I need recovery in my own life. Once I learned this program would be a possibility, my thoughts and actions began shifting and not because I forced them to shift. I know that in order to be the best counselor I can be, I have to take care of me first. I have to get my own issues in order and take ED by the proverbial horns. I don't, however, have to achieve a quick and perfect recovery.

Slowly, I'm integrating new behaviors surrounding food. I've challenged myself a lot over the past few years, but now is the time to attempt a new challenge daily. For those without an ED, eating may not be such a huge dilemma. After all, it's simple, right? Get up, shower, eat breakfast ... Go to work. Take and eat lunch. Work ... Go home. Fix dinner. Eat and engage in family time or other activities. Sleep. Rinse and repeat ...

For me, it's more like this: Drag myself out of bed and into the shower after debating the previous night and first thing in the morning about what in the world to wear to work. Do my makeup, hair, etc. Start my car and try to throw together a quick peanut butter sandwich to take for lunch. No time for breakfast. Work. Sit at my desk for lunch with a peanut butter sandwich and maybe an apple. Eat it slowly until an hour or more has passed. Go smoke. Purge. Back to my desk. Work. Go home. Debate for an hour over whether to eat dinner and/or what to fix meanwhile snacking on Cheez-Its or tortilla chips. Eat. Purge. Eat again. Purge. Smoke. More tortilla chips. TV. Telephone. Snack again. Go to bed. Sleep. The whole day secretively spent thinking about food, weight, hunger, etc. while being completely and utterly aware of my body.

Did you get exhausted just reading that? Imagine living it. Yes, it's that crazy. That's just a summary of my day with food or the lack thereof. I battle nearly every minute with my mind and the thoughts that enter therein. But I've learned that our actions can be, and often are, a result of our thinking. We may miss so much of what life has to offer because we stay in our heads too much. It's one of the areas I need to tackle. Not all at once. Rather, one thought at a time. When I get up and ED starts in with "You don't have time for breakfast." That's when I need to step in and fix some oatmeal or an egg. After a week or two, ED's morning voice will be silenced and I can move on to tackle his "lunchtime voice." Little by little one gets far.

Perhaps what I'm getting at here is that I'm on my way to achieving a dream I only, well ... dreamed. I never thought it possible for me to actually become a graduate student, let alone a potential Licensed Professional Counselor who will some day help others with EDs and related issues. I'm shifting my focus more to getting healthy so I can be the best LPC possible.

I'm on my way to living a life I never imagined possible and AH, it feels so good.