Welcome to the three post series on ConfidencetoCommitment called “BRAND NEW”, this is technically the first post within the series, although there was an introductory post with a brief summary of what to expect within this series! Over the next 2-3 weeks, my blog will be filled with nothing but this series, but I already have some exciting plans for the blog within the next couple of months! This post, the first within “BRAND NEW”, is dedicated to what got me spiraling out of control again after a long period of recovery. So buckle up, and get ready for a whole lot of mess in a blog post.
I officially claimed to be in recovery on December 1st, 2012, from my eating disorder, and shortly after claimed my recovery from self-harm towards the start of 2013. After a struggling relationship and a struggling mind, I needed something to change in my life, so I decided that I must be the thing to change. I gave up my old tendencies and fought with all my might to find some true light and happiness. It was a shaky start, but with some support as momentum, my happiness could be seen within the distance. I found myself a fantastic support system that became some of the greatest friends I have ever known. The more time that I dedicated to recovery and the more friends I found by my side, the easier I found my recovery. I slipped up a few times in regards to self-harm, but never let go of my recovery with my eating disorder. After these slip ups, a sense of strength came over me and I powered through my junior year of high school. My junior year presented some real battles within my life. I experienced the most excruciating heartbreak I can imagine, I came out of the closet, and I found old relationships with friends crumbling. However, I fought through and was so proud of myself and of my triumphs at the end of the year.
The summer after my junior year, I created this blog, ConfidencetoCommitment, which instantly sparked a following and a good number of views every time I posted. When asked, people explained that it was my brutal honesty and vulnerability on my blog that made it so appealing to them. People began to tweet me, to message me on Facebook, text me, and email me about how my blog and story inspired them to stay alive. I found myself in a place of euphoria, something that had been lacking in my life for so many years. Unfortunately, this feeling did not last, and came with am immense amount of pressure. I didn’t want to let my readers down and deliver a post that didn’t satisfy them. As my senior year began and was in its midst, I came across a series of people who doubted my morality, my kindness to others, and my ability to love others. This took a tremendous toll on my happiness and the security that I felt within my life. So Worth Loving (www.soworthloving.com) and To Write Love On Her Arms (www.twloha.com) are a portion of my life that I represent daily, through fashion, social media, and through what I thought was my actions. After some high school drama, I was doubted on many things, including the way that I was treating people because of problems that I had with them.
One of my greatest flaws is how show my insecurities, which is through defensiveness. After not being cast as roles that I wanted within musicals, not receiving solos in choir, struggling with God, and struggling with how much of a joke I appeared within the LGBTQ+ community in my hometown, I fell back into a state of defensiveness to hide my insecurities. Regardless of how people were treating me, the way I reacted was so inappropriate and is now understandable how it was perceived as hatred or as someone who didn’t really embrace the So Worth Loving and To Write Love on Her Arm’s lifestyle. Instead of outwardly discussing my feelings like I had been doing on my blog for the past months, I found myself blogging less, telling my friends less about my pain, and putting forth anger instead of love to hide my true inner emotions. I felt as if members of my choir and of my theatre troupe hated me with so much passion that I had nowhere else to turn. I wanted so hard to spread love to them, and to make them feel so worthy of love and happiness, but my insecurities made me come across as a dark, sinister, and hateful person, which is something that my heart does not wish to represent. I was consumed with rage over the most miniscule events, because every single negative aspect within my life now seemed to be magnified by a thousand. My head was a raging sea of misery, insecurities, and jealousy, and forced my views of others to be misconstrued
After a few months of this, I began cutting again. I began lying on my blog (when I even posted) about how I was really doing, and I began making more and more enemies within he things that I loved most in my life. People saw me as a judgmental person, not as someone who wanted all to feel worthy. I was tearing myself up inside, I didn’t know how to tell them my true intentions because I had dug myself into such a deep hole. I began to doubt myself again. I doubted the way that I looked, the way my body looked, I doubted my talents, I doubted my relationship with God, and I doubted if I was even a decent human anymore. I convinced myself that it was okay to start cutting again. Each time it happened, I cut deeper, and I cut more and more and more. There was a time in the winter of 2014-2015 that I cut so much that my right and left arms, right and left legs, and hips, were covered with hundreds and hundreds of marks. I didn’t know where else to turn anymore. I hadn’t been to therapy in over a year, and I couldn’t bear to tell my friends that I was so depressed and anxious again.
As the year progressed, I fell into a pit of immaturity. I cared more about maintaining this “hard-ass” or “I don’t have feelings or emotions” side of myself, than focusing on how much pain I was putting myself through by not showing the love that I knew was in my heart. Scars that had long faded found themselves onto my arms yet again, and it felt as if I the years of work I had done was all for nothing. I graduated from high school having more enemies than friends in the things that I loved most (Choir and Theatre), which made me that much more ready to leave my town and move away to college. However, in regards to my mental stability, I was the farthest thing from ready to move away to a completely new location and be basically on my own. I wanted to run away from my problems, leave those who I had skirmished with behind, instead of pushing through what would only be waiting for me each and every time I would return from school.
I remember looking down at my stomach in the shower one day and not liking what I saw, something that hadn’t crossed my mind in quite a while, and had been of recently. I then looked to both of my arms and legs and saw marks that I had put there, and thought to myself “Well, if I can do one thing (cutting), I can do the other (purge)”. That night, I made myself purge my meal for the first time in nearly 3 years. I had fallen into such a depression again. I knew that people hated me yet again, and I knew that it was all in my control, and everything that had begun again within the past year was something that I could have changed, if I had only wanted to put forth the effort. I’ve been told in the past that I am a very persuasive person, and that proved to be true by the way I convinced myself it was okay to leave the remains of my meal in a porcelain bowl that night.
When I first decided to give up purging my meals, it was just something that clicked in me. I told myself that I did not want to live a life like that anymore. Two and a half years later, the same thing commenced. I did not want to hurt any longer, and I did not want others to be hurt because of the things I had done within the past year. As simple as it sounds, the only thing that truly got me out of my relapse was me. I had to rearrange my thoughts, tell myself I was worthy of life and happiness, and find the things within my life to be thankful for. Just as I was persuasive enough to allow myself to purge and cut, I was also able to persuade myself to suit up and quit living in a pool of self-pity.
I relapsed, but it didn’t end my recovery. It was merely a road bump, and allowed me to refocus my thoughts, energy, and time, to becoming a safer and happier me.
I hope you will join me over the next two blog posts within the “BRAND NEW SERIES” here on www.confidencetocommitment.wordpress.com, as I discuss my new recovery tactics and where I stand today with my recovery.
Thank you, for your support and dedication to this blog, it means more than you could imagine.
J.B.S.
12/16/15
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