Hey, Loves.
I am not going to formulate any lame excuses, just sayin’ life happened. Some good, some bad – hey, I even tossed in some travelling for two days. My big bro celebrated his 40th birthday and I flew in to Dublin where they had a stop over on her one-year-surf-and-kite-roadtrip through Europe.
Being on the plane and travelling is clearly the thing for me. I have a strong desire of freedom and feeling stuck somewhere, bound or dependent, I need to break out. And travel.
Booze first, always.
It was the best surprise ever.
I drank coffee. Who am I.
A day later I photographed my peeps at the Swiss Alpine Battle. In between superstars like Sara Sigmundsdottir and Brooke Ence. CrossFit Comps are my favorite part of my job, for sure.
Anyway, this intro is kind of misleading, as I am not planning to talk about my life, in all honesty, I am backing out in talking too much about my current stuff – I suspect most of it is nonsensical mutterings anyway, and in any event, some things do not belong here.
I’d like to share a throwback moment I had when I was out with my blondes crew in Zurich the other night and we took a short walk along the lake, the lake where I used to live by back in the days – about three years ago. I remember so well this day. I was without a job and I took runs and walks along the lake daily, cause it gave me relief and peace. This day was about 2 days post relapse and I had enough. I said this ‘I have enough’ about 6000 times during my ED, but that day was different.
I decided to take over.
Whoever is struggling with an addiction knows exactly what I mean when I say that you feel like you are pilot-controlled. You take actions you don’t want to take. You hurt yourself despite wanting to be good and despite knowing that what you do right now will just devastate you. And still, you’re doing it.
That’s the central lineament of the Eating Disorder and that’s why it always scared me. I felt helpless and weak, and I was angry, cause for me, it seemed like I WANTED to stop but I just COULDN’T, cause this stupid monster kept on chasing me. IT. THIS. THE ED. But in the end, it was ME. I had a choice – to be stronger and to fight, or to give in and keep on whining. To accept the mark of being disordered, or not to. To hide myself behind the disease and taking it as an excuse to act weird, or to get rid of it and be courageous, honest and – myself.
On this day, I decided not to be bulimic anymore. I knew this would not work from one day to the other, but I knew I had to take a decision and to keep focused on that. I knew it will be the roughest ride of my life, but I knew it was worth it. I DECIDED TO BE NORMAL. I decided to not let an addiction define me. I wanted to define myself with whatever the hell I pleased.
I wanted to live life JUST the way I wanted, doing things I love, being free and runaway. I was fed up with the mark of ‘YOU HAVE BULIMIA, and that’s why you do all that’. ‘You are a disordered person.’ ‘You can not work 100% cause you are sick. You need special conditions.’ ‘You are addicted. You have to live a different life than ‘normal’ people.’
WHAT THE FUCK. WHO defines who you are? All of a sudden, I realized that the sign written on it – ‘disordered. addicted. sick.’ was glued on my forehead and in my consciousness in a way that I almost let it be a part of me. Almost.
If you want something so bad, you have the strength to do it. I can not even put into words how much it took from me to recover. I am still amazed that I actually survived. But I wanted it more than anything else in the world. More than anything else in the world. Live, laugh and do whatever the fuck I please. No delusion of control, no judgements, no freaking guidelines, no rules, no traps, no cage.
An Eating Disorder is full of behaviors that keep on repeating. Rituals. Rituals can be consoling and that’s why we go for it. When we struggle, we reach for things we can hold on to and which give us comfort and a familiar feeling. Addictions have a strong tendency to act like these ‘good friends’, and that’s why we aim to turn to them. Letting go of them and take own decisions is scary and may release insecurity and fear. There’s the point to step out of the comfort zone.
I slowly but surely took over. I talked a lot about my recovery and you may know that it took me countless attempts, fails, get ups and relapses to finally make a change. That day was a change and that was only the beginning of THREE more years until I was fully recovered. It takes shit tons of time and that’s why we all fail at it so easily. But you gotta trust the process and keep on going. Focus, focus, focus. I knew I always have the choice. Every day, every minute. When the ED chased me and got me, I still had the choice to drop the food and walk away. When I held the package with the drugs in my hand, I still ad the choice to bin it or not. Even when the stuff was already in my mouth I had the choice to swallow or to spit. Take smart choices with everything you do, cause the option IS there.
Don’t get blinded and don’t give away the steering wheel. YOU are the one to drive the car now, so you better stay on track.
What is your smart choice today?
xxx
Lucie
