When to Fight

In a recent Instagram post, I shared my most recent layer and struggle–well, the external part of it.  The response has been staggering–the emails pouring in–just like when I talked about my booze problemo for the first time.

Summary: so many of us are struggling. With addiction. With pain. With trauma. With emotional abuse. With our own mechanisms that are HARMING us… but in reality? These are just ways that we are just trying to get through the day. To feel less, to survive, to not look back. To move forward.

But we are on a loop–repeating the same bitter, destructive cycle.  We are stuck. Stuck in the loop–or stuck in the same place. A tree with deep, sad roots–the explanation to the why and the how to recover just mere inches below the surface.

But we don’t want to dig. We don’t. We can’t. We stay here.

We “accept” ourselves. We try “self-care.”

And we wonder why we feel worse, more damaged, more jaded.

I’ll tell you why I think self-care and self-love is a destructive goal–in my book coming out in December #spoileralert (and I won’t argue with anyone about that premise until after December 17th)…but for now, I leave you with this:

We need to keep FIGHTING.

Sometimes, sure, the life process is about LETTING GO.

But sometimes, I think we need to stand up and FIGHT.

My life has been a story of fight. I always knew I was fighting something, but I now know what it was.

I was fighting for my freedom, for a voice. For a place where my emotions mattered. Where I was heard for what I was feeling, not expected to sit quietly and absorb the emotions of everyone around me. Not to be told how to feel and process and live in my own skin.

I was fighting for myself all along, I know that now.  But I was young, and I stepped into the shoes of an addict so early. I was able to withdraw, give up, and be what I was told.

In a sense, I knew I had to fight. But I didn’t know how to fight.

So instead of turning the fight outward and speaking my truth and fulfilling my own life in the way I saw fit (and not how everyone else expected me to do), I turned the fight inward.  

In turning the fight inward, I developed coping mechanisms that resulted in a shitstorm of destructive behaviors–to cope with this fight I knew that I couldn’t win.

Almost two decades later of fighting, I know what is going on.

And while letting go is part of the process, I am now also ready to FIGHT. To fight the outward and true fight that was always inside of me, but caged by fear and crossed boundaries.

This battle with food, with self-hate rages on. But I do not give up.

SO I fight.  The Instagram Post is below, for anyone who missed it.

Love to you all,
Meredith

Last week, I hit my lowest bodyweight in two decades—with lots of hard work, without the assist of pills, shenanigans or other voodoo.
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Then this week, I fell apart and let it all crash into a heap of sunflower butter, sushi, sugar and ballpark food.
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“So what, it’s not a big deal,” you might say.
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True. Except that the tally for the food—aptly logged, named and not to be shamed—was extraordinary. The sheer amount of junk I can consume is unfathomable.
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“Oh how bad is it,” I imagine asked with an eye roll.
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Well, it was about 5,000 calories. In addition to the regularly scheduled programming of about 1,600 a day. Yes, that’s like two large pizzas. It’s extra. And not in a good way.
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When I was a drinker, I drank like this. Always more, more and more. MORE. I have lived my life with MORE. This feels just like that out-of-controlness. In a really unhealthy and destructive way. I don’t like it.
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It boils down to safety—not feeling safe in my world, in my skin. To not trusting myself. To years of stuffing down emotional trauma.
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Just when I think I have this food thing licked.
Then I knock myself down. To prove that I am shit.
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Today I did not drink, and I won’t. Ever again. That’s the initial hurdle. But I am now realizing that I have to treat this binge cycle JUST like I treated booze. Never think I’ve gotten it “beat,” always on my highest alert, and not doing any more shit to harm myself—just because I am mixed up in the head.
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This post is my fight song. I share this when I know it matters. To me. Maybe doesnt matter to anyone else. But I need to saw it.
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I made a public song about booze almost 3.5 years ago.
I admitted it, and I said I would fight.
So I am talking about this now.
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It’s not about my body, the size or the shape.
This war—as any recovery from trauma or addiction is—is a fight for my soul.
Food is more than food. And it’s sharp.
When it’s a weapon, it’s lethal.
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Thanks for listening. One thing I know for sure, I always keep fighting. You’ll never see me give up on a second of myself—not for longer than it takes to eat the equivalent of two large pizzas, anyway. This is just the next phase. Right before the next… and the next.

#YearOfNoNonsense

#YearOfNoNonsense2Point0

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