((((((((((HUGS CARRIE)))))))))))
A toast of sake to your future!

This winter, it'll be 6 years for me. That thought terrifies me. For me, it was kind of the opposite, though -- I moved to Scotland for my junior year of college, ended up friendless and alone and self-hating; I focused all that anger and fear into food. By the time I came home, I was lost.

Staring down those years is daunting. Thank you for writing this blog and proving that there is a way forward.

(PS: I'm the stereotypical "longtime reader, non-commenter")

Anorexia sucks. It's a thief, a liar, and a killer.

You rock b/c you battled it and won, even though it didn't fight fair. You're embracing experiences, successes, and pleasures that it would still strip from you if it could. But it can't- b/c you kicked its ass.

And you help pull other people onto your side of the battlefield. Even in the midst of your 10 years of battle, you were winning- creating a bigger army, getting stronger as you fought.

You probably still battle sometimes even now. But the battle's not your life anymore. It's just a sidenote. You, your talents, your interests are back front and center.

Anorexia sucks. But you're stronger than anorexia, and that's really incredible. Here's to your next 10 years being so full to bubbling over with life that, in 20 years, the last 10 years won't seem as noteworthy.

I've been having similar thoughts. My ED started a little before I turned 13, and now I'm almost 20. It's just like, wow, there went my entire teenage years. EDs suck. I don't remember the fun times I had as a teenager, because there were none, but I can tell you what I weighed and what I was eating at almost any point in those years.

I'm thinking of spending a semester of junior year in Scotland if I'm doing well then.

I've been having similar reflections lately. there's so much time represented by useless memories of nothing but numbers and mirrors.
I will keep going forward, but I want to stop for a few days to acknowledge how cheated I feel, how angry and sad...it's not something I've been able to realize before.

I hear you. My Anorexia took hold when my newborn baby was just 3 months old ... she's now 3 and half and I have not yet been able to share a carefree meal with her ... I long for it. This all sucks and I just think we must be as strong as we can ... You've been through hell, live through hell but will appreciate heaven much more!

I think about that a lot too...how much time I've lost to ED. It's time that I'll never get back. I just try to remember that everything happens for a reason, even my ED. I am confident being able to recover will make me stronger and that, perhaps, it will allow me to help someone else someday.

If nothing else has come from the past decade, you have helped me. You have opened yourself up so that I and others like me don't feel so alone in this ED thing. I think that's a pretty big deal.

-Emily

I want to give you a cyber-hug too. I'm obviously not in your head but I can take a good guess at how you're feeling. My life has been dominated by my mental health problems for 15 years now, and even though I've done well in recovery from my anorexia for the last 18 months I still struggle with anxiety and depression. Sometimes I wish I could go back and do it all over again, but I don't think things could have turned out any differently. Even so, as hm said, I try to think that as long as I stay in recovery I will reach a day when more of my life will have been spent healthy than sick. I'm sure everyone reading this has their fingers crossed for you that your next ten years are much happier :)

I can literally remember the last thought I had before I purged for the first time. I had absolutley no idea that what I was doing was disordered. It all seemed so necessary at the time. I have recently sought help for the first time and my gp asked me how long has all this been a part of my life. My answer: 18 years...exactly half my life

I feel lucky my ED started when I was 13 and i'll be 22 in a week. I'm not recovered but im getting there and i have my LIFE BACK.

I hope your ED NEVER takes a year away from you again

Dana xo

It's a great sign when ambivalence has shifted and this EDz is seen as creating loss, not gain, in life's equation. It's a step for all of you to state, with distress, that this EDZ sucks. There's radical acceptance for you!

Lori Lieberman, RD, CDE, MPH, LDN
www.dropitandeat.blogspot.com

A big hug to you, Carrie. Here I am at almost 66 having lost 15 years of my life to that terrible illness and yet my life since then has been one big incredible adventure. Yours can be, too.

Darling, darling, darling Carrie.

Huge cashmere blankets of love and hugs winging their way from over here. D and I had the same conversation this morning about the past year which, when you are 13, seems an aeon of your life.

My advice to her is the same to you: You can't change the past BUT you can shape your future. A future without ed is one worth living every moment of, whatever happens.

I am also feeling guilty because I suspect I started you on this journey of retrospection - am off to iron my hands.

xx

Charlotte

Beautifully honest. A sad and hopeful post. I love your writing.

I now have an incredible craving for vodka and Chinese food!

Carrie, here's to your next 10 years, -- they are gonna rock!

Oh, Carrie. I know exactly how you feel and have those same mourning moments every so often. But what I try to remember is that this is me, this was my obstacle to overcome. And even though I lost so much, I can take pride in the fact that I beat, am beating so much, that I can take pride in that. And I learned so much about myself along the way. Of course it sucks, of course life was hell for so long. But in the end, I'm where I am now. I can't get back the college experience, the college group of friends that I never had....but I can move forward. And live the wonderful live that I can now appreciate, not starve and exercise away

I know how you feel. My anorexia started when i was 11. I turned 21 while in residential treatment, and i remember looking back and feeling that my eating disorder had robbed me of my teen years.

I really hope it doesn't rob me of my 20s as well.

Hugs to you Carrie - and to your lovely mother. She and I have more in common than we might. I very much wish neither of us had had cause to meet each other but since we do, it was lovely to finally meet her last month.

i could write a story almost identical, except we are all turning 30 now.. but i have wasted the last 10+ years, because of the ED that consumed my being!

so sad huh???

a great, honest reflection carrie!

thank you

I heard this song on the radio just now and it reminded me of this entry you wrote: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCN0hnogqj8

I know Ed is probably going to be really angry at me for sharing this with you, but I will say it anyway. I think that this blog, while it is award winning and successful, is keeping you sick. It keeps Ed at the focus of your life....and that is not the goal of recovery.

You are an awesome writer, and you would do just as well writing about other topics.

Ed is probably very angry at my suggestion, and that is understandable, because he wants to continue be the focus of your daily life and rob you of the things that truly matter. He's probably really loud right now, louder than you.

You are not responsible for anyone's recovery but your own. They can find other supports/websites/can read old entries.

With love and prayers,
Monica
-a person who has successfully recovered from anorexia and is on the other side. I was told something similar, and was very angry. It turned out Ed was the angry one... I was asked to let go of friendships with people who are in recovery (not people who want to stay sick- I always avoided relationships with those people). I moved to another city, and it was part of the last step to recovery. I cannot believe that letting go of that was the key.

I am free, and I want you to be free, too. You can still write. You are too good not to write...

Another longtime reader, first time commenter here....

I've had an ED for almost 11 years now. I'm slowly recovering, but for me too, my twenties were sucked into the black hole of the ED. Thinking about all the time and money wasted, and all the life I could have lived in that time and with that money makes me sad and angry. It really, really sucks. And I'm fighting hard not to let this illness take another second from me.

Thank you for sharing your story with us.

Re: whether writing about one's ed "feeds" the ed monster:
I think everyone's recovery journey is a little different- it's important that we validate our own recovery experience while allowing others to have a recovery experience possibly quite different than our own. :)