Torn

My heart and mind are being pulled in two directions. What started as a positive day, has turned into a day where I am now questioning everything I was feeling and thinking.

Tomorrow is the one week mark of being in the hospital. After five days of hell, and discovering my severe restlessness, anxiety, and panic was a side effect from the gastric motility medication I was on, I had a positive weekend. I've been making daily schedules, supplement schedules, meal plans, and today I drove over my scale with the truck and threw it into the bush. I have been feeling like my mind is shifting. I want to move past my eating disorder, past my depression, past my anxiety and fears... I want to start living again.

I had been planning on going home tomorrow morning, but now the fear has hit me like a ton of bricks. I can't suffer anymore. I can't starve anymore. I can't purge anymore. I can't live in this hell anymore. I'm scared to go home and look foolish, and to crumble and regret my decision immediately. I was so confident, but the ed thoughts have creeped into my head. I worry that as soon as I go home, I will fall flat on my face. I can't do that. I don't want to do that, but I am so, so scared. I am scared to gain weight. I'm scared to move past this. I want the fear to go away, but I know the only way to get rid of it, is to face it.

I can't stay in the hospital forever though. I'm out on passes most of the day, the food is disgusting, I'm not getting nearly enough to eat, I hide the medication I'm supposed to be taking... it all feels like a waste. It becomes a cocoon though. It's safe. I don't have to face life here, and I can continue to avoid it. I honestly, at the bottom of my heart, don't know what the right thing to do is. I am sick of always being so afraid.

I have made so many positive steps these past few days and it makes me proud. I can see the potential, I can see a different life... a peaceful, happy, and fulfilling life. I want happy times... good memories... love and laughter. I want to be free. I want the heavy weight lifted off of my shoulders.

"There are far better things ahead than any we leave behind."

"Fear is an idea-crippling, experience-crushing, success-stalling inhibitor inflicted only by yourself."

"Fears are stories we tell ourselves."

"Write about what disturbs you, what you fear, what you have not been willing to speak about. Be willing to be split open."

"I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear."

"Fear is a manipulative emotion that can trick us into living a boring life."

"On the other side of fear, lies freedom."

"Everything you want is on the other side of fear."

"The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek."

"You have to remember, fear is not real. It is a product of thoughts you create. Don't misunderstand me. Danger is very real. But fear is a choice."

I can do this. I can overcome my fears. I can beat this disease. I can live the life of my dreams.