Hello everyone,

Last night, I decided to take a much needed break from my boyfriend of three years, one of the most terrifying and heart breaking decisions I have ever had to make.

When I began recovery, I remember telling E that I was scared for what recovery would mean for my relationships. I didn’t exactly know why it scared me, but I knew that it was the one part of recovery that  I was fearful of.

When I was locked into my eating disorder, all I cared about was how much I weighed and how much food I could restrict.  For the past year and a half, being so immersed in Ed let me close my eyes to the things I did not want to really look at.

When I was in my eating disorder, I didn’t care that my boyfriend would come home late at night after drinking, I didn’t care if he disrespected me or put me down–all I cared about was my beautiful and glorious number on the scale. Whenever he did make me feel bad, all I had to do was go back to the arms of Ed and he would comfort me.

Last night, after a long and draining argument, I sat in my bed and I knew I had only two options.  I could either do what I have done many times in the past 2 years, which is I could stay in our house, go back to restricting and let Ed be my solution and then pretend to get past this fight, or I could get up, stand up for myself and for once, face my problem, instead of letting Ed make it all better.

When I chose to actually be honest with myself, and with my boyfriend, I knew I had just made a huge statement to Ed.  This time, he will not be my answer.  This time, not eating will not be enough to be a solution. This time, I could not go on another night being fake with my own emotions. Where at one time, I was able to cover up my true feelings of hurt and disrespect by restricting, and then tricking myself into believing that everything in my relationship was fine, I cannot do that anymore.

I am sure that my boyfriend will not be happy that I am writing about us so publicly on my blog, but from the first day, this blog has been nothing but honest, and I cannot stop now. To be truthful, I have never been so honest in my entire life than I was last night.

Now that I am not fully in my eating disorder, my eyes are open. They are wide open and they see things that unfortunately I do not want to see–but for the first time, I am able to see things from my eyes, not from Ed’s eyes.

And while my boyfriend has tried his very best to be supportive of my recovery, I see now that just because he is trying to be supportive, does not mean he can be mean to me or condescending to me in other areas of our relationship.

Before I left the house last night, my boyfriend told me that “I am losing him because of my mouth,” meaning I am losing him because of the honest words I was saying.

This statement stood out to me and I thought about it all night.  The same mouth that once restricted food and let that restriction be a solution to the feelings he made me feel-the same mouth that shut up for so long–is now the same mouth that has begun to eat again and be healthy again-the same mouth that finally decided to open up and speak up for myself.  If speaking up for myself, and honoring my true feelings, instead of honoring Ed’s “true feelings and solutions,” means losing the love of my life, then I will have to find  a way to accept that.

To my boyfriend who is reading this blog today-I am sorry if you feel exposed that I am writing about this here for the world to see, but this is the truth of what I am going through.  This is part of my recovery.  Being able to see your actions clearly (friends, drinking, yelling, disrespect) and being able to see that no amount of weight loss will ever change that–that has all come from my recovery.  I am not sure what this break will mean for us, how long it will be, or what it will result in, but I do know that whatever it brings, it will bring truth, and we are both worthy of the truth.

Through the heart break and sadness that I am feeling right now, I can find truth in saying hello to my eyes being as open as they have ever been, hello to being true to myself, and “hello life.”