A Hand to Hold

I just want to take a moment to post about the importance of your support team in recovery.

This morning I woke up to a text from my beautiful friend Mara (one of the happiest and most loving people you will ever meet! She never met a person she couldn't hug). "I love my Heather! I love her face! I love her kindness! I love her humor! I love her strength! I love her friendship! I love her selflessness! I love my Heather! There's a list of positive affirmations for you to start your day with :)"

It made me want to cry. It's people like Mara who keep me smiling and keep me moving from one minute to the next. People like Mara and my wonderful boyfriend Casey.

Let me tell you about last night. I was really struggling, but knew that I had to eat so I went out and grabbed some food and brought it home to nibble on while Casey and I watched Dr. Who. If any of you have recovered, or are in recovery, you know what this is like. Eating because you know you have to. Eating even when you're not hungry. It's like medicine. Just take your medicine.

It's kindof sad really. I mean, food loses all pleasure and just becomes something you HAVE to do, like taking medicine. I don't like foods like chocolate or ice cream anymore because those were used as calorie supplements and are also classic binge foods. I have such a negative connotation with them and have never had a healthy relationship with sweets. It's to the point now where thinking about eating chocolate just kindof makes me sick to my stomach. There is no pleasure.

Anyway, back to last night. So my endo was acting up, and my stomach being full was SUPER uncomfortable. I bloated up really badly so it was hard as a rock and was very painful. This led to a very triggering evening with me finally coming to terms with and mourning the fact that I weigh more now than I ever have before.

But Casey was there. He held me, he told me I was beautiful, he told me he loved my body and that my face was pretty and my smile and my eyes. He told me to trust him and that he wouldn't let me get fat and just to let him "worry about the fats" so that I didn't have to.

He stayed up with me until 3am when I couldn't hold my eyes open any longer to play chess (a few rather...interesting games...considering how tired we both were).

I am blessed by the support group around me. I can't imagine what it must be like to do it alone and however much I may not be on total terms with God myself, I pray for those who walk this path without a hand to hold.