I have come to the realisation that I use the "total and complete control" my eating disorder has over me to avoid taking accountability for my actions. Because if I'm not in control, I can't be held accountable. And if I can't be held accountable, I can't be expected to change.
I can't recover. It's not my decision. I'm a chronic case. I'm addicted. Physiologically, my brain is too starved and shrunken anyway to be able to change. It's pointless to try. It's not my fault. I don't have the cognitive capacity to recover. The only way I'll obtain that capacity is if I eat. And I can't eat because my eating disorder is in control. And I can't change that because my brain is too starved and the neural pathways are too ingrained. And I can't change that because my eating disorder is in control. And I can't change that because my brain is too starved and...
Circle circle circle circle.
People talk so much about acknowledging that you're powerless over your *insert personal demon here*, as though that's some huge fucking monumental step forward. This confuses the hell out of me, though it used to make sense I think. How can anyone see acknowledging powerlessness as an incentive to action? Powerlessness is a crutch for me. It's my diplomatic immunity license plate. "You want me to change? Sorry, I can't help you there. You can take it up with my eating disorder; it's in charge around here. But it won't listen. What's that? You want me to give it up? Kick it out? Oust it? Rebel? Mutiny, you say? I already told you, I'm powerless. I can't."
And then we've got step 2 -- "came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity." Well then, if a higher power could restore me to sanity, then I wouldn't be powerless, would I? I'd have my higher power to call on. And even so... hi. I've called on my higher power. He didn't pick up.
Step 3 -- the thing about turning your will over to your higher power.
Oh wait.
Fuck.
Step 3 is always the step I get fucked on. So maybe my higher power did pick up, but I wouldn't "surrender." I wouldn't "turn my life over." But what the fuck? I've never been one for that.
Oh.
Except that I am.
Except that I already did.
To my eating disorder.
Um.
Well, God, this is awkward.
I guess... ideally, I'd want to be in charge of my own life. My will, my rules. So if my only two options are the eating disorder, and God... well then, I at least know the eating disorder gives me something that I want.
Okay.
I'm gonna do something funky and if you want to pass judgment on it, well frankly, I can think of a lot of better things for you to judge me for on this blog. I feel like this whole post might "help" me a little more if I addressed God directly. So you can stop reading now, unless you're God, in which case...
What if Your plans for me don't match up to what I want? Yeah, I know that sounds selfish, but You already know that about me. You already know that this is what I'm worried about, so I don't know why I'm explaining it like it's some big fucking surprise. I want what I want. I just... I don't know. I've always relied on myself to give myself what I wanted. People around me couldn't, or wouldn't, provide, so I made my dreams come true on my own.
*
But You helped.
I mean, if You didn't want me to have all these things... and they were already so seemingly impossible. Get into this university. Be one of 20, 25 people selected for its acting programme. Get into BADA.
*
Yeah, and You had me going on the BADA thing, by the way. That was a nice little touch.
But okay. What about the stuff I haven't done, that I want? Like winning an Oscar? What if that's not in Your plan? It's in my plan.
*
Well, it's not in my eating disorder's plan either, is it?
*
Okay, so no, it's not. But at least being skinny and skeletal is in my eating disorder's plan.
*
But what if... being skinny and skeletal isn't in my plan?
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Holy fuck.
*
What if that's just a lie, just... I mean, I've always thought I wanted to be emaciated. Not skinny, emaciated. Literally a stick figure. Ever since I can remember. But maybe that was just a means to an end. Maybe that was just because, as I've been exploring in therapy, of some twisted messages I received about need and nurturing and satisfaction.
*
...
Okay. Whatever. Mind-blowage via illumination of mass cognitive distortions aside, none of this changes the fact that I feel like I want it now, and I just am not ready to let that go.
*
My choice, then. But then I don't get to blame God for why I don't trust Him to "restore [me] to sanity." He's doing everything He can to help me make that leap. But it has to be me who decides to let Him in. He gave me the free will to do that. And until I say that stupid fucking "thy will not mine be done" bullshit, the eating disorder's will is going to stay in the driver's seat.
Maybe I can't do this whole life thing on my own. Maybe I don't have it figured out. Maybe that's okay. Maybe that's the point. Maybe asking for God's help makes me even more mature, more powerful, more independent.
*
I want a guarantee. I want a guarantee that things will turn out the way I want them to if I turn my will over to God.
And that's not how life works.
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