Hello everyone...I am totally new to this but I am open for anything! Hopefully I will eventually learn how to successfully navigate my way through the world of blogging :). I write in my journal a lot in my spare time (though I have not been very committed to doing so very often lately....college applications and essays for school take up most of my time these days!) Despite the fact that I have not written much lately I consider my journal my best friend. I bring it anywhere with me. I began keeping a journal the day before my thirteenth birthday. A lot happened that year and it was also the year that I developed an eating disorder. One journal lasts me about a year so I am on my fourth one or so now. Every now and then I like to pick up one of my older journals and flip through the pages that magically seem to take me back in time. And that is the beautify of writing, it can take you so many places! However, I never thought that my journal, which I named "My Journal of Life," would become a memoir of basically a girl battling an eating disorder which is exactly what it is today. I sometimes regret the amount of pages I fill up writing about my every day battle with anorexia but at the same time I see it as a release.
My journal entries are like short little stories but with a lot of depth. I don't think I have ever really written anything that I did not think was worth writing about...(though of course I have those moments where all I want to write is fml but I think that's pretty normal.) Before anorexia became a big part of my life I pictured myself one day being a cheerleader in high school, always being busy with SOMETHING such as going out with friends and driving my own car around town. But that's not exactly how my life has turned out to be now as I am sitting here at seventeen years old. I still have many friends of course but the constant hospitalizations and treatment centers over the years has kept me from doing many "ordinary things" that I had always dreamed of doing at this age.
Three years ago I had to give up ballet due to my poor health as a direct result of my eating disorder. I had been dancing ever since the age of seven and I must say that I miss it everyday. In a sense I still blame by parents and my doctors for taking it away from me even though I have done so much damage to my own body by not eating and taking care of myself. Hopefully that will change one day and I can get back to dancing again. I'm not sure if I would have much time to take many strenuous point classes as I would like to right now anyway because of all the time I am spending trying to prepare myself for my first year in college! I am very excited but have found it to be quite a scary process- major changes always stress me out! I recently applied to several schools and am still waiting on receiving an acceptance letter...I am really hoping this won't take much longer! More than anything I want to go to college somewhere up in the north of Georgia approximately four hours away from home but we shall see. My parents and treatment team don't see me being able to live independently at such a low weight (though I am not at my worse..) and very unhealthy eating habits! I have a lot of work to do before the Fall.I truly wander how this will all play out and where I will find myself seven months from now. I want recovery more than anything but a part of me still wants to hold on to the eating disorder. It makes me feel so safe and secure. Hopefully I can get through this.
Much love xxx
Rachel <3
