I have not been okay, but, like, I’m okay.

c/w suicidal ideations, alcohol/drug use, grief/loss

Hello, my loves. It has been a minute, hasn’t it? My instinct is to apologize for the long, procrastinated post; however, I am working on apologizing less for me just being me. Therefore, I am not sorry, but I would like to provide you with an explanation of my recent absence. I realize that writing a personal blog about my journey with mental health is both apparent when there is a post and when there is not a post.

Over the last month or so I hit a low… again. This time was different because I didn’t really see it coming. I was riding a high for so long, that even though I knew I would hit a downward slope again, I was hoping that just maybe I was wrong. Just maybe with my therapy and medication and stable partner I could just be “normal”, whatever that is. In my head “normal” is being able to live everyday without this overwhelming pain of the past and fear of the future grabbing ahold of you at different times in your life. I suppose after 2020 though, nobody is truly normal. Everyone I have talked to has struggled with their mental health is some way, shape, or form. Is this the new normal then? AM I NORMAL? I could never.

Anyways… While I used to think that my lows bloomed out of random acts of the universe, I now understand the many triggers that send me into a downward spiral. These last few weeks it was a culmination of so many things. The change in weather, in sunlight, election anxiety, work stress, the ins and outs of a new relationship, the coping skills from my eating disorder that I still lean into, the upcoming anniversary of the loss of a dear friend (re: Alex Wolf), the lack of continued contact to so many loved ones, the never ending news of millions upon millions of deaths from a virus that has been mishandled, the nightmares of people that have hurt me that wake me up in the middle of the night, my upcoming 30th birthday… need I go on? It wasn’t out of nowhere these feelings formed. My depression and how it responds to all of these life stressors is valid. Life is hard, having a mental illness is hard, writing this blog post is hard.

In fact, my roommate just walked into the room and said “are you crying? Is writing that hard?” And I just came to the realization that part of the reason I haven’t written anything in over a month is because I knew it was going to bring up a lot of feelings in me. These feelings are honestly a bit overwhelming. They sometimes show up as tears, or debilitation, or over activeness, or cold sores, or all of the above; it’s all a fine line. I must say this most recent slump has been much more manageable than my past experiences. I’ve only though about dying once, and it was so fleeting I wondered if it even counted- that is a major improvement for me. Hip hip hurray!

As I prepare to enter my 30th year of life, I can’t help but look back at the last 30 years and reflect on all the different ways my life has twisted and turned. Did I think I would ever be able to say I barely think of dying? When I was little, did I ever imagine the life that I am living right now? Not even a little bit. If my life had turned out the way I dreamed of as a kid, I would be famous, married, and have many adopted children, and probably live somewhere else like London or Australia. If my life had turned out the way I dreamed of when I was a teenager, I wouldn’t exist. And if my life had turned out the way I dreamed of as a young college student, I would be lawyer with a drinking problem.

Through these reflective moments, I am also reminded of how my depression has transformed over the years. How my low days are primarily a lack of motivation and much less suicidal ideations. How I am able to recognize it and provide myself with comfort instead of searching for it from strangers on the internet. The way that I reach out to those who truly love me, instead of pulling away from everyone that I love. Even just the way that I know that I am loved instead of feeling like the world would prefer that I not be here. I spent the last month in a depressive state and it didn’t scare me. I listened to the things that I needed in moments that felt the hardest and stopped shaming myself into feeling that it was wrong. It is hard enough being depressed and then also have my brain reprimand me for the way I was dealing with that depression.

I frequently ask my patients what their coping skills are and 9 times out of 10 they slink down into their chair and they begin to mumble that they smoke weed, or drink alcohol, or watch hours upon hours of TV. I try to reposition their mind set, the shame that lives within their slouched backs and mumbled tones. We are, at the core, humans trying to survive. Is drinking wine because I am sad the healthiest coping skill? Nah. Does it make me feel good in the moment, you can bet your bottom dollar. And I tell my clients just that. We do these things because we want to feel better and we shouldn’t shame ourselves into feeling bad for that. We can recognize that these are not long term solutions and that without getting real care and proper help these coping skills could create more harm than good; we can also recognize that sometimes getting stoned feels good. There is no healing when shame is masking all that we do, no matter what we are trying to heal from.

As I mentioned earlier, the anniversary of the loss of Alex Wolf is coming up on November 20th. Grief is not linear and there is no right way to heal. Many of us this year are experiencing that feeling. I can promise you that on Friday, I will be crying and I will have wine and I will call my best friend, his sister, and we will probably cry together and that might happen every year on November 20th and there is healing in that. I’m over feeling shame. Shame for what I put in my body, shame for how I heal, shame for how I look, shame for any of it.

Alex Wolf is one of the best people I’ve had in my life and when he passed I made a promise to live life like Alex. Alex was like the antidote for feeling shame. He made the people around him feel proud to be who they were because he was proud of himself and proud of his friends. In fact, I am smiling while I write this thinking about the time I was capturing images of my friends and asking them to give me their essence. [Image posted below.] Alex ran to put on his homemade corduroy shorts and take a picture with his best friend and I’ve never seen anyone more proud, even while me, his sister, and best friend mocked the shorts.

(Pictured: Stephanie B. and Alex W.)

So, all of this is to say 1. I haven’t been okay, but, like, I’m okay, 2. I still have depression and that is very real and I am still working to heal and cope, 3. thank goodness my life has taken twists and turns 4. There is no right way to cope, 5. Let’s stop shame altogether, 6. I miss you, Alex, 7. I am still trying to live my life like Alex, 8. Best friend, call me on Friday.

A[wo]men

when i let shame take ahold of me

i let go of knowing

i am exactly

where i need to be

-reasons to get rid of shame

Strength is Found in Awareness & Help

C/W suicide, depression

Hello friends, welcome to our newest time and place. If you didn’t see the memo yesterday I am officially posting my blog on Thursdays because I have just found myself extremely tired on Wednesdays, so I have been using those days to heal. Healing looks like many things right now. Resting, first and foremost, but also scheduling my therapy on that day to help process what the last 7 days had brought me. Since I didn’t write last week, I’ll catch you up on what the last 14 days brought me.

The last two weeks were filled with a lack of energy to do much of anything. I felt completely void of motivation. I cried A LOT, more so than usual- which is A LOT, A LOT for “regular” people. My shower schedule went from every day, to every three days. I still brushed my teeth every day, twice a day which is honestly the biggest win of them all. I ordered takeout food every night, most of which was fast food, and most of which could have fed two people.

It is mental health awareness month, and with that I want to make people more aware of my experience with depression. This is something that I have sprinkled throughout all of my posts, but it is rarely the star of the show. Depression was a side character to enhance the more “important” story. I quote important here because in reality discussing depression is just as important as the other parts of the story, but the thing about vulnerability in writing is that it can be easier to write the story and hope the reader can read between the lines. Today, I don’t want there to be any messages between the lines. I want to be raw about my experience. I would also like to be raw about my experience of healing and processing and the journey that my life has taken.

This last week was a reminder that healing is not linear and as much as I hope and wish that old habits have died hard, I know they are still there, lingering around. In fact, the last couple of weeks my depression has been the worst it’s been in a year. I felt numb and tired. Anytime a person asked me how I was I would respond “Oh, ya know, just tired.” There it is again, the reading between the lines, hoping that someone recognizes the fact that I’ve been tired for two weeks and that isn’t normal. Praying for someone to ask me again, “how are you really though?” There is this fear that if we say how we really are we won’t get the response that we really need. We know we need the help though, so we leave context clues and hope one day someone picks up on it. It is interesting how subtly people ask for help because of this fear. I’ve picked up on it a lot in the work that I do. If you have someone always saying they are are tired, or when asked how they are always respond with the same answer, try asking them again. I like to call this phenomenon the folly of small talk. Sometimes people really don’t want to know how we are. So, there are these automatic lines we sprawl out like a red carpet for others to feel more comfortable. I loathe small talk. It is devoid of any real meaning and I think it should be canceled. In my opinion, if you don’t want to really know how someone is, don’t ask.

Okay, I am getting a little bit off topic, let’s circle back to my depression. Spending most of my life with, I’ve gotten good at hiding it from others and having my automatic answers lined up. My experience with depression has been a long and winding road, escalated by trauma. I have wished to be dead on countless occasions. Again, no reading between the lines. I would pray and cry and beg to go to sleep and not wake up. I recently read online somewhere (I wish I could remember where so I could give them credit) which said suicidal ideations are often the hope of getting rid of your current life for a new one. Meaning, people don’t necessarily want to die, they just want the life as they know it to be different. I wanted my life as I knew it to be different. The older I get the more my depression ebbs and flows, and the less I want a different life. I can go a long time without feeling any of it’s lingering effects and then one day I am triggered by something and it sets off this downward feeling. A feeling that is both slow and fast at the same time. I’ve done a lot of work around this and working through triggers. My recovery time is actually much quicker nowadays. Something I am proud of.

Working through depression though, is a battle. If you have watched Game of Thrones, you can recall the scene where Jon Snow is being trampled to death during the ‘Battle of the Bastards’. For those of you that haven’t seen it, he’s literally under a pile of humans all stepping on him, as he is gasping for air. While watching it you’re like “Oh yeah, he’s definitely going to die” and then somehow, against all odds, he comes out. Yeah, that is how I would describe battling depression. In fact, it’s a great title for the battle of depression as well. Those bastard voices in my head trying to keep me down and I have to come back ten times harder. It’s a muscle though and I know that the more I keep coming out of it and fighting back the easier and easier it gets. I think an example may help to get a better idea. I’ll walk you through a day of my worst depression this week. I’d also like to note that this experience is vastly more doable than what my depression looked like when I was younger. I have done a lot of work.

My alarm goes off, although I’ve only been partially asleep because my body can’t seem to shut all the way down. The sound of the alarm is not jarring, it is just irritation. I calculate how much longer I can stay in my bed, how much longer can I push the time? If I skip showering.. again.. I can lay here for another 20 minutes. In those 20 minutes I am not resting. I am thinking through a million different thoughts. ‘I wonder what today will bring? Why can’t I just get out of bed, it’s not like I’m actually sleeping right now? You are so lazy. I wish I didn’t wake up today. I wish, I wish, I wish..’ I finally role out of bed. I go into the bathroom where I convince myself that brushing my teeth is necessary. As I brush my teeth I look in the mirror and stare at the bags under my eyes. ‘Why do you look the way you do? Maybe because you didn’t wash your face again last night?’ I then talk myself into washing my face. I go the kitchen to get breakfast. All I want is junk food. I eat left over, cold pizza. I take my vitamins, hoping that they are the magic pill to make this feeling go away. I realize I only have 10 minutes to leave the house and then I rush around picking out an outfit, looking in the mirror at my hair realizing there is no time to fix it and leave. I bike or walk to work, knowing that it is good for me to get the exercise. That this will help with how I am feeling. It actually does. I get to work, where I know I have to have space for others trauma, so I leave mine at the door. Before I enter I remind myself that my pain is not important right now, this space is for them. Once in that space, I feel a little break. I hold space for other people, and my pain feels lighter, but by the the end of the day I am exhausted. I now I have my pain on top of there’s and I don’t know where to put it. I bike or walk home, again knowing that this is the most helpful thing I’ve done all day for myself. I get home and want to turn it all off. I turn on TV and watch something that I know will numb my thoughts. I order take out. Most likely shake shack for the 4th time this week. I eat the food in front of my screen. I eat it so fast that I barely remember what it tasted like. I feel full to the point that it hurts. I stare at the screen wondering why I just ate so much. The pain is so familiar and it makes me feel good, in the worst kind of way. I try to stay on my screen for as long as I can, so I can avoid hearing what I know I am thinking. I know those negative thoughts are swirling in there- you’re horrible. you’re disgusting. you’re unloveable. I finally make it to my bed where I spend another 30 minutes on my phone, trying to avoid the moment the noise all stops and I have to hear those thoughts. I finally turn the phone off and count down from 100. This helps me fall asleep and avoids the noise further. Finally I am asleep, but not really.

This is what a day with really bad depression felt like recently. Each step is hard and it is something that I mentally need to tell my body to physically do, otherwise it would just stay in that state, in my bed, not moving. I usually give myself a day, when I am feeling that way. I call it my depression day. It’s like a staycation for pain. I recognize that I’ve pushed my body far and it needs a break for a moment. I just kind of melt into my feelings and give it some space. I then spend the following 24-48 hours pushing back hard. Every negative thought has an equal and opposite reaction. This last spell though was a bit longer than 24-48 hours of pushing back. I think because there is just so much going on at once. Like COVID, depression, dating, trauma, drama is a lot for one girl to handle. But I still pushed back and I finally feel like I am finding a clearing. BLESSED.

What really helped me find the clearing though is therapy. I reached out to my therapist, who I hadn’t talked to in awhile, because for awhile I was doing really well. The second I realized this time felt a little different though I sent that email. I knew I needed support and I knew, as much as I love my friends and family, I needed a different type of support. The moment she came onto the screen I burst into tears. Not because I was sad, but because I knew there was space for me to just be. It was tears of relief, of all this pressure being lifted off. We talked for the full hour. I honestly could’ve talked to her for two hours. She reminded me of my strength and my ability to reach out when I need help. I had forgotten to recognize this as a strength. She helped my brain process in a way that felt like all the static was clearing and I could get a good image. She reminded me of different ways I can help myself, ways I didn’t even think about.

The most interesting part of our session was when we discussed my work. We were discussing how I should hold space for myself between patients. When talking about what I could do I said I have a meditation app and I could listen to that between each person. She looked at me with a puzzled face and said “Sarah, that really won’t help you. When you are experiencing trauma, even vicarious trauma, you are being heightened. You are disconnecting from you body. Meditation will only make you go higher. In those moments you need to remind yourself of where you are. You need to be in that room wholly.” She said “the best antidote for trauma is embodiment.” I was shooketh. All this time I’ve been told that meditation is basically the end all be all and here is my therapist being like ‘nah, that is not what you need.’ She talked about literally tapping my body to remind myself that it is here on earth, in that chair, in that place. So, for the last 24 hours, anytime I could feel myself leaving the room, I began to tap. My face. My chest. My legs. Tap. Tap. Tap. It brought me back every. damn. time. Brilliant and simple. My favorite kind of healing technique.

The thing with healing through, and depression, and mental health is that our stories all look different. Yet, we all have pain, we all have mental health, we all have feelings and we are all constantly trying to heal. The reason there is a month dedicated to awareness is because there continues to be this stigma that nobody else experiences these things and if you do experience this you are “not normal”. I have to argue the exact opposite. I can’t think of one person in my life that hasn’t experienced pain or that couldn’t benefit from therapy. We go to the doctor when we break our leg, but when we feel pain, when our hearts shatter into a million pieces, we think we have to heal it on our own. This is cultural. There are people trained in healing broken hearts. I beg, urge, and plead with you to help me break the stigma. Tell people that you hurt too, just like every normal human being, and that there is ZERO shame in seeking support in that. Isolation creates and perpetuates negative self-talk and feelings of depression. Culturally, we think we are being strong by not getting help, but in reality we are actually harming ourselves in ways we don’t even know. The reality is that being strong means we know we can ask for help and then doing just that.

Today, be strong- reach out for help and tell your story.

A[wo]men

P.s. Not sure where to start? May I suggest right here.

tap. tap. tap.

you are here 

in this space.

you are breathing

in this space.

you are living 

in this space.

you are

in this space.

-grounding

 

Body image, trauma responses, and a pandemic, OH MY!

c/w trauma, binge eating disorder

Hello all! I hope this post finds you in a space that is ready to read. If not, perhaps put down the device and take a moment for yourself to create a more suitable space. I take no offense, please take care of yourself. For those of you that do find yourself in such a space to read, I welcome you!

I’m currently sitting at my dining room table as my skylight windows are drenched in what can only be described as a bleak, gray, uninviting day. I would also describe this as the perfect writing weather- nowhere to be, no rush to get outside, just a strong desire to process. So buckle up friends because today we are driving full force into it: Body image, trauma responses, and a pandemic, OH MY! So, let’s get into gear, shall we?

This last week or so has been rough. I had a shift in mindset and I can pinpoint the exact moment it happened. I was sitting on my phone, for longer than I had intended, scrolling through social media, and this old voice comes into my head. ‘You’ll never be like them. They are popular and beautiful and you will never be them, so stop trying. And they certainly don’t want to be like you.’ I couldn’t seem to turn the voice off. Running, which has been my solace throughout this pandemic, couldn’t even shut it down. It just played over and over. This voice has been a dear friend of mine for some time even though I used to be really harsh with her. “SHUT UP!” I would usually yell, which only made it louder. I now use a different approach. I respond gently and inquire what is coming up, what memory or pain is there?

There were plenty of memories and pain. I knew I was having a trauma response (hence the skipped blog post last week). I had stomach aches and I recognized them from a mile away; I got them all the time as a kid. This is known as the mind-body connection, wherein your body hears what your mind is saying and responds to it (i.e. sadness leading to stomach aches). I have gone through different types of trauma in my life and there are a few warning signs that let me know a trauma response has been triggered. First, my inner critic starts up. Second, are the stomach aches. Third, is this overwhelming desire to eat until I can’t feel, which then masks the stomach aches. No longer do I have to think about the feeling I am having, but rather I can focus on the self-induced pain I have caused by eating too much.

This is also known as Binge Eating Disorder, something I have suffered from for most of my life. Actually, I would like to instead say, something I used for coping with most of my life. Albeit, not a healthy way of coping, but a coping skill nonetheless. The thing about binge eating though, is that it all connects back to that initial thought, right? Because when I eat too much, I feel like a failure, which then makes me sad, which then makes me have stomach aches, which then makes me want to binge eat. It’s a cycle.

So, this brings me back to that harsh vs. gentle voice. Since I now know and recognize all the signs, I am able to process a little differently. In this last week, I had a lot of reflection time. What is coming up, what memory or pain is there? This pandemic has brought up a lot of hard memories and pain. Memories of feeling alone. Memories of being a teenager and feeling like being here was just a little too hard. A lack of direction and needing guidance. Pain from broken relationships. Thoughts about loss of love. It was baby Sarah again, just wanting someone to hold her.

I would like to note that as I am writing this, tears are splashing onto my table, flowing from my cheeks like a waterfall. Not because I am sad, no; I am crying because there is a release happening. It’s like being under water for a long time and then getting to come up to the surface for air. There is that mind-body connection again, my brain processing and my body responding to it. In this connection, I’ve learned that the best way to heal from past experiences is actually embracing how my body is responding, not shaming it.

I’m also crying because my younger self only knew shame. Now, knowing that there are other ways to understand oneself is equivalent to taking in that first big breath of air. Shame was something I learned young and specifically from how I presented my body. I remember being a young girl and “developing early” as they say. My boobs grew in fast and my butt was always bigger than the rest. Something I now embrace, but as a kid I could only feel shame about. I remember wearing outfits that would hide and distract from the fact that my body didn’t look like the girls in my class. My friends were all thin and blonde and kids. I was thicc, had boobs in fifth grade, brunette, and had to grow up too fast.

I guess this is all to say that quarantine is bringing up these feelings in me again. I can feel baby Sarah isolated and alone, but instead of feeling shame I go to the source and I examine it deeply.  So the source came from when I was scrolling. What was I seeing as I was scrolling? This thicc body of mine has been a source of jokes for many people lately. Memes draped in images that look like my body, with words that express fear of being like me. Posts about eating too much because there is nothing to do, when my stomach knows what overeating really feels like. These images have hit the core of baby Sarah and that inner critic. However, after exploring it more I found that these things have not made me feel shame, what they have made me feel is lucky that I now know my worth. That I have had time to examine my body outside of what others think it should be and I have found pride in the creases and lumps and dips and highs and lows. I remind baby Sarah of all the things this beautiful body has brought us. This life I have is all thanks to the body that got me here.

I say to her now:

“Baby, we don’t feel shame for this body anymore. We still feel a lot of things all the time, but we do not have the space for shame. Brené Brown once said ’empathy is the antidote to shame’ and we hold that antidote inside. We are superheroes, healing ourself. We still feel a lot of things all the time, but baby shame is no longer one of them. There is a pandemic and people are sick. We are healthy and surviving. I know it feels easier to focus on our body because it is a space we can understand, but if we are going to do that we are going to use our antidote. Baby, we don’t need shame, we need understanding and self-compassion. It’s okay that we felt triggered, we experienced some tough things, but guess what? We made it through and we will keep making it through. Baby, we do not have the space for shame.”

In this quarantine if you are finding yourself responding in ways that you don’t like, try not to yell “shut up!” Maybe try a gentler approach. Gather your empathy that you so often share with others and turn it inward. You deserve love and understanding as much as anyone around you does. Perhaps, you’re having trouble knowing how to be gentler and that’s okay too. Just try starting small, like saying ‘shh’ instead of ‘shut up’ and maybe those words eventually turn into ‘I love you’.

But for now, just remember, you are a superhero with the antidote for shame right inside of you.

A[wo]men

**Side note: with this blog post I am doing a giveaway! To enter:

1. Follow my instagram account- sarahlorrainerobinson
2. Follow my friends instagram account- sopowart
3. Tag a friend that you think would enjoy reading this weeks blog and use the hashtag #awomengiveaway on a photo on my instagram page.

You will then be entered to win $50 via Venmo and a painting made by sopowart (see featured image for painting). Winner will be chosen Friday 5/1.

SHUT UP!

SHUT UP!

SHUT UP!

“I can’t.”

they whisper.

“but maybe,

if you held my hand,

i could change my tune.”

-how to approach yourself

 

 

I’m Full!

Oh my what a week it has been. My parents were visiting for a few days and just left today and I am exhausted. I really am an ambivert. I like some time with others, but gosh I really need that alone time too. Too much of one makes me go all wonky. It’s a balance really.

I think one of my favorite things about having visitors in the city is having them see what life is really like. I pretty much forbid tourist attractions. If you want to see the statue of liberty, mom and dad, go see it on your own. Ain’t nobody got time for that. Harsh words, I know, but like you’ve seen it once that’s good enough. They did, btw. They went to the statue of liberty while I was at work, bless their hearts.

“You really walk this much? Does the noise ever bother you? How do people drive in this city? (*hint, we don’t.) Do you ever miss Alaska and the quietness? (*Hint, I do.) Are people nice? Do you go to Manhattan? Is that weed I smell? Is that lady always on your stoop?” -All excellent questions from out-of-towners I’ve had.

The thing is, just like I am an ambivert, I am also a middle-of-the-road dweller. I need some of both when it comes to my living place. Alaska, was just a bit too quiet for me. Thoughts of bears eating my face off would take over and well, in the quiet it’s hard to turn those thoughts off. Living in Manahattan was like being sucker punched every morning when you walked out the door. Sometimes I would dream of a volume button I could put on the 1st ave to quiet all the busy workers down. Brooklyn, to me, is just right. *Dying my hair blonde and becoming Goldilocks now- except that whole fear of bears may deter this drastic change* My street is quiet and my apartment is even quieter- and cozy, if I do say so myself. It’s got beautiful town homes that line the street, and, as my mom kept insisting to joke about the entire trip, “a tree really does grow in Brooklyn.” (Good one, mom.) People, and by people I mean the dudes I talk to while online dating, ask me if I plan to stay in New York forever. I don’t plan on anything forever [learned that one a long time ago, okur], but I will be here indefinitely.

All this talk of Brooklyn makes me wonder where I will be in 5/10 years. In my last blog post I talked about all the things I was so sure of and how those things changed. This time two years ago, I was getting ready to move to Alaska. I thought Alaska just might be my forever home. I wonder what state I will be in, both physically and mentally, in another two years. I try not to wonder too much because then my imagination takes over and before I know it, I am living on a yacht with my sugar daddy in the Caribbean, where he has his off shore accounts. See, told ya this brain of mine can really get creative.

While it is super fun to have these imaginative moments, I also know it is wasted energy because I have no freakin’ clue where my life is going or how it will end up. Which interestingly enough is how I also write my blog posts, who knows how this baby is going to end! It is interesting though because in the past it was hard for me to ever think of the future. When I would think of the future I was most certainly alone and most certainly depressed. There was no fun creativity. I was Debbie Downer all the way *wah wah*. I think I am still just processing this whole ‘I can live a life without suicidal ideation’ thing. It has opened up my brain space in so many ways, I almost don’t know what to do with it all.

Actually, my brain space has opened up in a lot of different ways recently. Most notable, is that I stopped talking about weightloss, dreaming about weightloss, and really any sort of diet talk at all. When I hear things like “Ugh, I shouldn’t have eaten that” or “I’ll definitely need to earn my next meal” I just shut off my brain and zone out. And the coolest thing has happened since I have made this transition. For the first time in my life, *drum roll please* I felt full. Louder for those in the back- I FELT FULL. Let me tell you, two of the weirdest feelings in the world have occurred to me in the last month. I stopped hoping to die and I stopped feeling the need to binge eat. Last week I wrote a poem about what it feels like to not have suicidal ideations. I wish I could also write a poem about feeling full but it is honestly indescribable. Trust me, I have tried to explain this to people that don’t have an eating disorder and it just doesn’t work. Unless you know the feeling, I don’t know any other way to tell you.

The first time I felt it, I was confused AF. I remember just like closing my eyes and thinking aliens have invaded my body. What was happening in my body.. This weird sensation. I was fully present while I was eating and I was listening to my body. It told me it was full and I just listened. Ever since that day, when I feel full I can’t help but smile. Like hey, look at me listening to my body signals and being aware and shit. This is not to say that I don’t ever overeat anymore. Sometimes the chocolate is just too good to put down, but when that happens I no longer feel guilt or shame.

In fact, I am over feeling guilt or shame for anything I choose to do to my body. I am over people convincing me that I should feel guilt or shame. Part of the reason I developed an eating disorder was due to guilt and shame about what I looked like. Want to know why I wanted to die? Guilt and shame about who I am as a person. And, heck, I am living in a privileged body. I’ve actually moved away from writing about the body positive movement for this reason. I do not want to diminish any body that has felt discrimination, that has experienced this message of guilt and shame particularly due to intersectionality, and I do not wish to center my voice in this movement. I mostly just want to say that it is a wild ride to decide to not care how people see you. I would actually like to give credit to those that are centered in this movement because they are part of my healing journey, that led to me being able to be a diet culture drop out. Some notable people you should be following on IG is @lizzobeeating, @bopolena, @sassy_latte, @libbyshappyproject, @theeverymanproject,  and @recoverybrainfood. I could keep going but I will limit myself. Part of my journey to this space of fullness was unfollowing all the accounts that made me feel bad about who I was and follow accounts that are about standing in their truth and feeling good about it. How could I feel full when the people I was following before made me feel so empty? It was one of the best small changes I made for myself. And of course shout out to my therapist, who is the real MVP. In these changes and commitments to myself and my wellbeing, I was able to drop the guilt and shame and realize it was the only weight I actually needed to lose.

Before I moved to Brooklyn, I was at a low point in my life. Now, here in my safe space, I am growing into something I never thought would be possible. I’ve told many clients that I’ve worked with before that just because you move somewhere new, does not mean that it will change the things you are struggling with. And while this is true, it is important to note that it can be positive to get a new perspective; to try new places until you find the place that feels ‘just right’. This can mean changing places physically, mentally, or even virtually. Finding a place that lets me feel full and alive and in love with myself is the place I want to be.

I want to really encourage you to stop following the accounts that make you feel bad. Even just try it for a day, you can always go back to them- they aren’t going anywhere. It changed a lot for me and it just might have the same impact for you.

A[wo]men

click. scroll. like. like. scroll.

it’s not fair, they’re better-

IG tragedy.

-How to feel empty

So, that’s how this one decided to end. Fascinating.