Attempting recovery, again... whatever that may be. All I know right now is that it has to involve eating, not purging, not doing other addictive/self-destructive behaviors, and actually facing my emotions and fears headlong instead of running from them. Further than that I don't know. But I realized I want to do so much more than just let the restriction/anorexia consume my head, and it was getting to that point (when the body is a starving organism all it can think about is food and all that crap). I don't want it to get to that point. I want to still have a mind, and to be able to think.

It's not that I particularly want to give up ED. I wish I could continue on with it and have my head be fine and then everything would work out in a way I was happy with. But the reality of it is that my weight is too low for it to work like that... and maybe even at higher weights it still wouldn't work like that. I just... can't be the empty anorexic shell. I can't get back there again. I can't let that happen.

I want to read, and learn, and think about more important things than disorders, and have a brain available to do so. If that means I have to eat, then it means I have to fucking eat. Whether I like it or not; whether I would prefer to eat or not. Neither of those things matters. It's what I NEED to do that matters.

Some of this has come from the fact that I have a friend who's IP for her anorexia right now, and seriously struggling both food- and mood-wise, and so I've been sending her all sorts of positive, recovery-inspiring pictures over iPhone. But I felt like a complete and raging hypocrite for telling her that SHE could do it, that SHE could face her fears and be brave and strong, and yet simultaneously diving deep into my own ED and ignoring everything I was telling her. So I guess this picture-sending thing has sort of gotten me to say, "If I believe she can do it, and I believe other people can do it, and lots of other people have done it too... then WHY THE FUCK CAN'T I DO IT???" Sometimes my rational brain actually does take over and tell my stupid, childish ED self where to go. Sometimes it does. And other times, like before last night, ED is in complete control and all I want to do is submit to it, because it "feels" easier.

Well, I can't do that anymore. I have to eat, and not purge, and not cut, and not do any of the other stupid shit I have done, because it interferes with my ability to think and it precludes the possibility of me ever having a life. So I HAVE to recover. It is not an option not to recover. I HAVE to.