Recovery is a constant battle

I had a revelation today: recovery is a constant battle.  It is a relentless process, not one that happens in fits and starts.

Have I been fighting to overcome my BDD and working hard to set up a better life for myself? Yes, of course.  However, I’m realizing that I only fight when absolutely necessary.  When something happens, I can analyze it and determine if I want to have it in my life.  I can recognize when I’m having BDD thoughts, and am slowly working to push negativity out of my life.  But there are moments in between that are seemingly lacking in stimuli.  Moments when I’m not being pushed by my therapist or battling an obvious trigger.

I now recognize that true recovery happens in these moments.  Recovery happens when you recognize your opponents, see their arsenal of weapons and get pissed off about it.

I was feeling self-conscious as I got ready today ~ noticing all of my flaws, feeling extremely anxious and beginning to spiral into my typical BDD thought/compulsion pattern.  I didn’t want to go out of the house ~ I wanted to, but felt like I couldn’t.  I was just too ugly.  Everyone was going to stare at my face and all my horrible imperfections and turn away in disgust.  I couldn’t handle that happening.

And then something clicked in my head.  I thought, “who is telling you that you’re ugly? Who is making you feel this way? The media? Society? TV? Magazines with perfect-looking models on the cover?”  I stood in front of my mirror and listed all of the different sources that made me feel worthless.  I thought of all the ways beauty is personified in our culture and all the reasons I supposedly do not fit this ideal. I saw my opponents and I saw their weapons.  I knew exactly what I was dealing with.  And then I got pissed.

How do people who have never met me have the right to determine how I feel about myself?  Who gave a group of individuals the power to sit in their offices and decide who is prettier than whom, and who looks perfect and who doesn’t?  Why do they think that they can wave their advertisements and photoshopped pictures in my face and cause me to break down because I know I can never be what they want me to be?  Do they think I’m that weak?  Do the people pushing popular media today think that I am nothing but a weak, brainless little girl who will consume whatever trash they throw my way simply because they say so?

No.  I am not.  I am intelligent.  I am independent.  I can stand on my own two feet and make my own damn decisions.  You don’t know me, and you never will.  You can not pull strings like an invisible puppeteer and make me do your bidding, buy your products, spread the word of self-hate and ignorance.

 

I am going to learn to love myself.  I do not need you to tell me how to feel ~ I am perfectly capable of figuring it out on my own.  In those moments in between, when I am sitting idly around waiting for the next trigger, waiting for the next moment of insecurity, I will remind myself who and what I am fighting against.  I am going to charge at my self-loathing with increased fervor.  I will make recovery my full-time job.  I will defeat you.  You won’t even know what hit you.

It’ll be me.  And I’m going to be beautiful.


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