I'm beginning to learn who I am, and its kind of exciting and scary. Its scary letting go of ED, but freeing at the same time. So hard to explain! I'm working on trying new foods, working on letting go the anxiety of seeing the numbers on the scale and letting go of the idea of perfectionism. Its extremely hard and exhausting work but if I've come this far so I know I can do it. Its been almost two and a half years since I've relapsed and its been a nightmare, but I wouldn't change one thing because I'm redefining myself and its a wonderful process. It's also seriously strengthened our marriage so much which I love. I did come to the realization that I'm trying to be at my lowest minimum weight while trying to recover at the same time. That's not going to work at all. I realized I need to let go of that number and just be happy with who I am. I have so many rules in my head that I need to change that don't benefit me in any way. Rules that just hinder me and keep me away from the recovered life. Rules such as "I can only eat ____ today, or I can only weight ____, or I can't eat _____ because it has too much fat."  There's other more serious rules that I won't put on here but changing something you believed for so long is hard to do. I want the recovered life so badly, it scares me for wanting it, because its something new and ED is still wanting me to hold on. I have to let go. I want to have an amazing life and ED is ruining it. He's caused so much pain and anguish as well as pretty much destroyed my body over the years. I actually had to have a conversation with my doctor about that the other week and he told me "You need to come to grips that you might never be able to have children because of this." I broke down (which isn't hard for me to do recently haha). I broke down because I did this to myself but I also couldn't help it, I had no idea how to pull myself out until I met my wonderful treatment team that I have now. I have a mental illness, so I can't blame myself. I need to put my trust in God though, that I will have a child one day. I'm shaking writing this because of all the changes that are happening now. I'm stressing so much over it, but I'm also a little excited. This is another step for me to take to recover from this terrible illness. I'm taking that step now and even though its a work in progress, I'm proud of myself for doing it.

Also, y'all. Jenni Schaefer's CD is AMAZING!!! I've constantly played it in my car and its so uplifting. So go buy it now!! All of her songs just blew me away. I can relate so much to them its crazy. I'm so happy someone wrote songs about these struggles. Thank you thank you thank you Jenni and it was wonderful meeting you at the NEDA conference!