I want to take your pain…

Hello All, I pray you are healing with each day passing, fueling your bodies, and accepting the love you are all so deserving of.

The past few weeks have been quite strange for me. People get older, people get sick, and life doesn’t stop when you need a quick breather. The sun will still rise tomorrow whether I am ready for it or not.

The realization that some things are completely out of my control, doesn’t always sit well with me. I so badly want to take the pain of my loved ones, take the illness, the heart ache, and make all the bad days go away for them - but I can’t.

It is a feeling that makes me feel so defeated, so useless.

I think that is why I found so much comfort with my eating disorder. If I didn’t like something I could give it all to my disease to take it from me. If I didn’t like my body, I could starve it. If I didn’t like my hair, I could dye it. If I didn’t like myself, I could hide it. I had the control right in the palm of my hands when I needed it.

I now understand what my family felt like when I was going through the harder times with anorexia. I now know what is like to want to take an illness and put it on myself, to take the pain, the hard times, and I also now know what it is like to know that I can’t take it, I can’t fix it.

— I have always felt like I will be okay if my family was healthy, safe, and happy.

Health is something we take for granted. Love is something we take for granted. Waking up is something we take for granted.

I feel out of control right now friends. I feel weak. I feel sad. I feel unlovable. My life feels out of place, and I am fighting the urge to try to control my body in a way that is unhealthy.

Recovery is so, so weird.

I want to take everyone’s pain, even if it inflicts pain on myself. I want to feel in control of a body that doesn’t look like mine anymore - even though it is.

I hope you all are thriving. I hope you all are fighting the urges too. I hope you all know that being in control is not synonymous with being healthy.

I am here for you all.

Love,

Rachel