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It has been over two years since I discharged from the center and I am doing really well! I have not been hospitalized since, I am back into work and school, I live in a nice little house with a bunch of roommates, and I am able to care for myself and recognize my needs. However, I still feel a loss of identity without my eating disorder or apart from my depression. How you do define yourself in recovery? I define myself mostly with my work and school- but I want my sense of self-worth and self-esteem to come from from somewhere deep inside, apart from my physical actions. Am I a culmination of my work? A jumble of grades? Nice comments people have said about me or written in my good-bye book? The girl who likes rock climbing and pottery? The "eating disorder girl"? Do you define yourself by your feelings? When I was at the peak of my eating disorder, I defined myself as my negative emotion- I was worthless, depressed, and empty. As sad as it was, it was a palpable identity that I could grasp and submerge myself in. In my recovery, I have this oscillating scale of feeling happy, content, productive, needed, etc. to feeling those same feelings of worthlessness, rejection and depression. I don't know who I am. I am just a person who has feelings, who lives, who makes both mistakes and good decisions.
Does anyone have any thoughts/ reflections/ ideas?
Keely |
