need a kick in the pants? read.

an online friend of mine who suffers with an eating disorder sent me an email she received from her sponsor. i absolutely love it; it's perfect. if i become a therapist, which is likely, i want to be like this woman. a mental illness with a 20% mortality rate is nothing that can be coddled and hugged out- one needs harshness, reality checks that may feel brutal at the time, but are greatly appreciated later.

i had a bunch of reality checks all piled on top of each other from my eating disorder. i incurred nerve damage, malnutrition, and refeeding syndrome. my mom told me i looked like i had cancer. i went to the dentist and found out i needed two cavities and two sealants. i met a woman off facebook whose life has been destroyed by her eating disorder. sitting face to face with her in starbucks, i listened for an hour while she chronicled horror after horror- becoming septic, losing all her teeth, only having one kidney, permanent low potassium, etc. she pretty much scared me into recovery. i didn't want to become her. she is 33 and has nothing to show for it except an eating disorder. i hate to say it, but chances are, she won't live much longer. and that's a tragic story that is happening all the time, everywhere, with this awful disease.

so, no, in my view, eating disorders need a zero tolerance policy. an eating disorder isn't a visitor you escort politely out of your home. it's an intruder that you beat the crap out of with a baseball bat and then shoot with a gun. harsh wording, right? well, the situation calls for it. that's why i love this sponsor's email. she's telling this girl to cut the bullshit and JUST DO IT. stop her symptoms, get out of denial, be true to recovery. only then can you reclaim your life and, hopefully, your health.

here's her email:

Have you talked to your therapist about how you keep managing to
act out, despite feeling so "done"? I mean... sounds like there's
some headmagic in there. What bullshit are you telling yourself at
those moments that lets you keep relapsing? You should figure that
out and counter it. And you might also consider getting a cheap tape
recorder from someone, or computer software that will let you record
yourself talking, so that you can explain to yourself why you need to
not do that.

Abstinence is step 0 my dear, and you keep going back. If you want to
move forward, you need a foundation of abstinence. It's like you
explained to me the other day, "Oh, I'm only purging every other day"
or whatever the frequency is, is just bullshit.

There's this moment, and you need to have it. And hey, lucky for you
it's a second step moment, so start getting into that headspace. The
moment is this:

When you're about to act out again, you need to realize what you're doing.
I mean, really realize. Realize how many, probably thousands at this
point, times you've sworn were the last, and how just days ago or just
hours ago you were on board with being "finished" and how here
you are again. And you need to feel the depth of the shame
of that powerlessness, and you need to feel terror at that insanity,
and you need to realize that you are doing the same thing over and
over and over and over and over and over and over, with more
consistency than a mother loves her child, with more loyalty than a
lover far from home, you are completely at the mercy of that insanity,
and you keep going back to it.

And at the same time, you need to know that you have a choice. And
you need to make that choice. And you need to sit on your hands and
clamp your mouth shut and let go. Whatever bullshit makes you think
that acting out is going to help--whatever you're running from or
masking, you just need to look at it. And you need to trust that it's
not that bad. And it's no worse than every other addict's great inner
fear. We're really pretty uncreative. I'm a terrible person and no
one will ever love me, everyone will leave me, and I'm inherently
broken and can never really be happy. That sort of crap. "I can't do
this." But you only ever need to do it once, right then, in that one
moment. And you've always got one more in you, I know it. Otherwise,
you wouldn't keep getting clean over and over. You just need to get
to the point where you don't have one more relapse in you. You need
to get to the point where you can't bear to keep perpetuating this
situation. You need to take responsibility for it.

And then reach out if you want. Do something to take care of yourself
if you need to. But those things are really just distractions. And
don't get me wrong, distractions will get you through the day. But
that doesn't matter because there will always be moments where you've
run out of distractions and it's just you and that gaping hole.

I don't know what to tell you S. You've got to be willing to make
that choice, whenever you have the opportunity to do so. Acting out
has to no longer be an option. You have to move forward.

Let me know when you've finished your first step. We can't move
forward if you're not clean. There should be something in there about
understanding that you're powerless, and that your life is
unmanageable. And there's the baseline membership requirement: desire
to stop using. Between the two, you should have no excuse to act out.
Every time you act out, you're denying one of them. Either you're
deciding to fuck off recovery (desire to stop using), or you're
telling yourself that you can get away with it (powerless and
unmanageable). And you've worked 2 and 3 before, so you know what
comes next. Hope and faith. First you need willingness. And
willingness is what should get you through that moment I talked about.
It's what should help you make that choice.

By the way, since you're relapsing, I bet you're also lying. Is this
the case? Don't write me back a long explanation. Don't vent your
feelings and insecurities at me, I've heard them all before. But if
you have anything new you'd like to tell me, you can tell me in a
bulleted list. No full sentences allowed, nothing longer than one
line per bullet. And if you've lied about anything, I'd include it.
Omission counts as lying, as I hope you know.

Anyway. Hope this can be your last relapse. Isn't it getting boring
yet? Cause I sure think it is. I'm running out of creative ways to
say the same thing over and over. Soon I'm going to tape myself and
give it to you, and you can just use that until you get it, and then
when you have a few months clean, we can try some new lessons.

-K