What's your motivation to recover?

beccalucy
beccalucy Posts: 250 Member
edited October 7 in Social Groups
I'm having a hard time staying focused on recovery at the moment and am being easily influenced by others who may not be trying to recover. I'm sure I'm not the only one

So, what's you motivation and how do you keep focused on recovery?

My motivation to recover is to run the London Marathon in April but the focus is something I'm struggling with!

Replies

  • busterbluth
    busterbluth Posts: 115 Member
    My son, for one. I never expected to be able to have one, and he's really all I have (the stress of parenting is also overwhelming to me, though, however, and kind of a barrier to recovery as well. I need to find a better way to cope).

    Another is one of my best friends, who was also in group treatment with me in Chicago, died July 2010 because of this. She wasn't, like, one of those 60lb people you see on talk shows: the majority of our friends didn't even know she had anything going on. This really does happen.

    I have a bunch of health problems and I'm just tired. I'm tired of thinking about it, I'm tired of being moody and exhausted. I keep saying, "I'll let go when. . .x." I know I need to work harder.
  • Mine is my family. I'm not convinced I have an ED, but they are very worried. My hubby thinks I'm on the brink, and my mom and sis are convinced I have full-blown anorexia. :( I want to recover, if that's the label I need to put on it, to put their minds at ease. And I have a daughter who needs to know that she is beautiful at any size, which will be hard for her to appreciate if everyone is always talking about mommy's weight. So, for her sake, also, I want to recover. But I don't really know yet what recovery actually means for me, or what I'm really recovering from. I guess maybe it's easier to think of it as stepping back from the edge of something dangerous than to think of it as recovering from something that has already taken over, because I don't feel like it has gone that far (yet).
  • ME. I'm my own motivation because I have worked too damn hard to get my life to where it is, but if I'm still living with ED I sort of feel like a failure. I'm all set with Ed and all his bull****...I'm ready to be me, not my eating disorder.
  • logicandlove
    logicandlove Posts: 191 Member
    Honestly, I just want to be feel free, and when any kind of disorder is controlling or defining you and your actions, you're not free. I consider myself as recovered as I'm ever going to be, because I haven't been eating in a disordered way for over a year now, but the temptation is always there in the back of my mind. My motivation is keeping that voice as quiet as possible, and controlling my ED instead of the other way around.
  • littlemili
    littlemili Posts: 625 Member
    am being easily influenced by others who may not be trying to recover.
    Get them out of your life. Why would you keep anything around you which might have the smallest negative influence on your recovery?

    My motivation is that I don't want to die and in the end that's all that my ED will get me - a slow, untimely death. I don't want my bf to watch me kill myself. Mostly I just want my life back - I've lost a lot in the last few weeks, from family bonds to college to my mental health.
  • cschmidt42
    cschmidt42 Posts: 190 Member
    ME. I'm my own motivation because I have worked too damn hard to get my life to where it is, but if I'm still living with ED I sort of feel like a failure. I'm all set with Ed and all his bull****...I'm ready to be me, not my eating disorder.

    I love your response on this, please tell me how you got this far!! I would love to be where you are at, I am exhausted from thinking about it all the time!!

    Crystal
  • starcollapsing
    starcollapsing Posts: 57 Member
    I want this out of my head. I'm tired. I don't see why I should hate myself so much, I don't think it could possibly be right for anyone else to feel about themselves the way I do about me. I want to be able to concentrate. I want to be able to feel things, even if it's scary. I want to study music again because I love it more than anything but I gave up singing when I relapsed.
  • ME. I'm my own motivation because I have worked too damn hard to get my life to where it is, but if I'm still living with ED I sort of feel like a failure. I'm all set with Ed and all his bull****...I'm ready to be me, not my eating disorder.

    I love your response on this, please tell me how you got this far!! I would love to be where you are at, I am exhausted from thinking about it all the time!!

    Crystal

    Well, talk is cheap. I am finally in a place where I can recognize that I am ready to recover. My counselor and I discuss this at length and I finally realized that this is the right time in my life to recover...not just live with my ED. In the past, I always has an excuse standing in my way from actual recovery: school, wedding, job, etc. Now, my life is shaped exactly how I want it, and I have time and energy to give recovery my all. It's certainly not easy. I just got back from vacation in wine country yesterday, and Ed is telling me to restrict, restrict, restrict, purge, purge, purge...but that would be too easy, the hard part is living my life.
  • cschmidt42
    cschmidt42 Posts: 190 Member
    ME. I'm my own motivation because I have worked too damn hard to get my life to where it is, but if I'm still living with ED I sort of feel like a failure. I'm all set with Ed and all his bull****...I'm ready to be me, not my eating disorder.

    I love your response on this, please tell me how you got this far!! I would love to be where you are at, I am exhausted from thinking about it all the time!!

    Crystal

    Well, talk is cheap. I am finally in a place where I can recognize that I am ready to recover. My counselor and I discuss this at length and I finally realized that this is the right time in my life to recover...not just live with my ED. In the past, I always has an excuse standing in my way from actual recovery: school, wedding, job, etc. Now, my life is shaped exactly how I want it, and I have time and energy to give recovery my all. It's certainly not easy. I just got back from vacation in wine country yesterday, and Ed is telling me to restrict, restrict, restrict, purge, purge, purge...but that would be too easy, the hard part is living my life.
    [/qu

    Very well said, that is awesome that you are in this place in your life. I can only hope that I am in that place. I feel that right now my life is so screwed up. I have made some poor decisions in my life and right now I am living with those decisions. I am the only one that can fix my life and I am trying to do just that. Good luck on your recovery it sounds like you are in the right place!! That is awesome!!

    Crystal
  • cschmidt42
    cschmidt42 Posts: 190 Member
    I want this out of my head. I'm tired. I don't see why I should hate myself so much, I don't think it could possibly be right for anyone else to feel about themselves the way I do about me. I want to be able to concentrate. I want to be able to feel things, even if it's scary. I want to study music again because I love it more than anything but I gave up singing when I relapsed.

    Are you currently in therapy? I am sorry you are having such a hard time with your relapse. I can understand. That is what I am dealing with right now. THe last 8 days have been better. I am really trying to get back in a better place. I believe learning to love yourself and think more of yourself is part of that process.
    I hope you have a blessed day and I am sending ((hugs)) your way!!:flowerforyou:

    Crystal
  • Emme727
    Emme727 Posts: 92 Member
    I'm tired. I turn 40 in a few months and I have been dealing with ED since I was in my early teens. This past October I watched my father have a major heart attack (the widow maker). My brother has bad cholesterol (as does my father) and now it turns out that I do to. It is not that our cholesterol is high, but it is that our good cholesterol is too low. I then realized that my starvation/yo-yo activity is putting additional stress on my heart. I need to have a strong healthy body for myself and for my children. I need to lead by example. And I'm tired of being afraid of every morsel that I put into my mouth. I want the remainder of my life being healthier than the first part.
  • therapyruns
    therapyruns Posts: 164 Member
    I want this out of my head. I'm tired. I don't see why I should hate myself so much, I don't think it could possibly be right for anyone else to feel about themselves the way I do about me. I want to be able to concentrate. I want to be able to feel things, even if it's scary. I want to study music again because I love it more than anything but I gave up singing when I relapsed.

    This is exactly what I am going through right now.
  • rkass323
    rkass323 Posts: 4 Member
    i want to be able to move on with my life without this. i want to be happy and strong again. i don't want this to destroy my life anymore than it already has.
  • cowlover22
    cowlover22 Posts: 309 Member
    My son, for one. I never expected to be able to have one, and he's really all I have (the stress of parenting is also overwhelming to me, though, however, and kind of a barrier to recovery as well. I need to find a better way to cope).

    Another is one of my best friends, who was also in group treatment with me in Chicago, died July 2010 because of this. She wasn't, like, one of those 60lb people you see on talk shows: the majority of our friends didn't even know she had anything going on. This really does happen.

    I have a bunch of health problems and I'm just tired. I'm tired of thinking about it, I'm tired of being moody and exhausted. I keep saying, "I'll let go when. . .x." I know I need to work harder.
    What a lot of people dont realize that a lot of people that die from anorexia/bulimia die when they are not at their worst. It is usually after the damage is done. You dont ever know. It could be that one time that you purge and your esphagus ruptures. For me one time was my bowel ruptured. I was just lucky to be at the hospital when this happened. So very sorry to hear about your friend.
  • cowlover22
    cowlover22 Posts: 309 Member
    My motivation is I am so tired of being miserable..why would I want to keep something that is making me miserable?Just not that easy I guess.Hard for me at the moment to find to much motivation since it has been 2 1/2 years that I have been a widow. Didnt expect that at 38. But I am the only family member that my niece has left. So if anything happens to me she would be deviated So I guess it is for her and my patients. I wish I could say it was for myself..
  • Kelseyyyy22
    Kelseyyyy22 Posts: 46 Member
    I'm going to college in the fall and I want to be able to enjoy my last few months living at home with my parents and friends. I don't want to suffer. I don't want to argue. My eating is literally the root of every single argument, and I don't want to feel like everyone hates me because I argue with them so much. I'm just done with this. Soooo done.
  • busterbluth
    busterbluth Posts: 115 Member
    Today's motivation: I feel like garbage. I fall asleep before my toddler (then wake up every few hours). I have meltdowns over food.

    I need to focus on getting healthy and fit. I WANT to get healthy and fit.
  • vinylgroover
    vinylgroover Posts: 12 Member
    My life has become unlivable. I can't function properly in day to day life anymore, and that's my biggest motivation for recovery. My life is a numbers game. There are people my size and bigger that have all the things I want to have, do all the things I want to do, why not me? It used to be that I felt like the fat girl watching all the skinny girls have fun and do the things I wanted to do. Now I'm the sick girl watching all the healthy girls do all the things I want to do. This is a sick and twisted part of my personality that I've uncovered, but I'm not willing to keep it forever. I've come to the realization that I can be all the things I want to be, accomplish all that I want to accomplish. Or I can have this. A normal life, or bulimia. I can't have both.
  • Emme727
    Emme727 Posts: 92 Member
    Today's motivation: I feel like garbage. I fall asleep before my toddler (then wake up every few hours). I have meltdowns over food.

    I need to focus on getting healthy and fit. I WANT to get healthy and fit.

    I have meltdowns over food as well. I hate it.
  • beccalucy
    beccalucy Posts: 250 Member
    This weeks motivation; I need to be able to work long days without feeling like I'm going to pass out. I'm sick of being ill
  • littlemili
    littlemili Posts: 625 Member
    My new motivation:
    I am going into a hospital program which lets me out on evenings and weekends. My college professors are giving up their evenings to coach me so that I can pass the year, when they should be spending that time with their kids, or giving concerts. The sooner I recover, the sooner they get to see their kids on weeknights again.
  • Behavior_Modification
    Behavior_Modification Posts: 24,482 Member
    1. I want to be under 200lbs
    2. I want to be healthy
    3. I want to stop hating myself
    4. I want to eat like a normal person
    5. I want to stop feeling ashamed
    6. I want to stop destroying my pancreas
    7. I want to be in control of my behavior
    8. I want a better quality of life
  • moochachip
    moochachip Posts: 237 Member
    My motivation: To be able to be outside a hospital room, able to move on my own.
  • sinclare
    sinclare Posts: 369 Member
    I do something positive for my self. Not about food or related to the illness.

    One day I will say Hi to people before they say hi to me. They smile, I smile. It's all good.

    One day I will buy myself flowers.

    I wash windows and let in the sun.

    I play my favorite music.

    One day at a time. Don't expect miracles. Don't punish yourself if you "fail" or have a bad day.

    Then next day just get up. Do something nice for someone else.

    Do more for others and it will strengthen your resolve to be better to yourself.

    These are some things that help me.
  • emrys1976
    emrys1976 Posts: 213 Member
    I actually didn't realize that I was relapsing until I started working with a dietitian to help me lose weight after I was diagnosed with a heart condition. The dietitian was telling me to eat 1400 calories a day, at least 120 carbs throughout the day, etc., etc. and I started sobbing and insisting that I couldn't do that (I had been restricting at ~500cal/day for a litle over a month by then). She fought with me for about 3 months before I finally went back to my previous therapist for an evaluation. By then, it had escalated to the point that I was doing fasting days and I was having weeks of daily binges and purges, which is harder to be in denial about. The truth is that some days I am more interested in recovery than others. Today I am waning a little bit but I'm trying to remember that my heart is sick and if I continue doing what I have been - whether it's starving, purging, bingeing, or compusively overeating - it is just going to get worse. So that's my motivation today.
  • emrys1976
    emrys1976 Posts: 213 Member
    oh, and I made an agreement with myself to stay off pro-ED and CRON sites and to try to connect only with people who are at least trying to recover. I'm too easily triggered by people whose irrationality can seem so rational to me. If any one is looking for friends, please send a request - I could use some!
  • I want to be free; I don't want to obsess over food and calories and exercise . For just one day, I would like to be able to make decisions without having meltdowns, panic attacks, depression afterwards, etc. I don't want to be a prisoner anymore.
  • I want to be free; I don't want to obsess over food and calories and exercise . For just one day, I would like to be able to make decisions without having meltdowns, panic attacks, depression afterwards, etc. I don't want to be a prisoner anymore.

    I agree. It holds you back from a lot of things. It took me so long to even have a good time at a party...just because I would obsess about the food, calories, weight...I dont want food to control my life. Honestly, that is the ONLY motivation for me to recover right now.
  • dancin2011
    dancin2011 Posts: 92 Member
    My sweet, beautiful baby!
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