October 9, 2007

 How are you doing now?  A question I am constantly asked now that my eating disorder is out in public.  Many believe that just because I have opened and shared my story with the world that I am all well.  Not true.  My eating disorder comes in different levels of intensity, but yet always remains a constant.  It's the days when I don't have ANY of the eating disorder thoughts or longings that are the true recovery days for me. 

As I'm sitting here at Juice and Java on my last day living in Paradise, California I question "what will today be like?"  I'm having my usual, banana-nut muffin with a triple grande americano with room for cream and Splenda... just how I start my day out each morning that I don't have to be at work at 4am.  My feelings this morning are peaceful.  I don't have the desire to isolate this morning.  I don't have the desire to run and binge either.  Some days the urge to binge and purge has already begun by this time.  Maybe there's a relief inside that says "well you've already done it for today, now you can focus on other things."  Sometimes the voice hits me at noon or waits until the evening when I've already accepted the excitement that I had a no purge day.

Back to the question of "how are you doing, Kelie?"  I have to answer... "I'm surviving, I take each day at a time.  I try to make healthy choices for myself that will lead me to a more stable recovery."

Last week on my flight home from New York after filming "The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet" I made the decision to move back to Santa Rosa, California where my support system is.  Yes, a hard decision because I'm leaving behind people here who I love and will miss greatly,  I'm leaving behind and secure job, a great church, and a great morning coffee shop where I love reading and writing on a morning such as this.. (okay the last one not of vital importance).  I'm leaving comfort to go back to a place I ran from the day I graduated from my outpatient eating disorder program.  I'm going back to finish what as started... to get well, to find me, and overcome this struggle.

 My mediation today will be one that I refer to often, and that is "I who began a good work in you will finish it until the very end"  Philippians 1:6