During recovery all sorts of weird and wonderful things start to happen to your body as it switches back on (spoiler alert they’re more weird than wonderful and definitely in the heat of the moment distressing).
There are the obvious ones – you gain weight, your hair grows back and you stop getting heart palpitations and blackouts every time you stand up but some of them are far less obvious.
Some of them you’ve probably never even heard mentioned before.
Why not? because those who haven’t been there really don’t know so how can they tell you?
It’s one thing to learn about hypermetabolism (extreme hunger) and quite another to experience it.
It’s one thing to read that you will get your period and quite another to experience all that entails in real life.
And it’s one thing to know weight gain happens and quite another to run your fingers over soft muscle and fat where before there was only hollows and bone.
On top of the difference between knowing what will happen and actually experiencing what happens there is more. There are the changes that will be wholly and fully unique to you.
There is no one who can give you a heads up for those ones.
They are little surprises for you to discover along the way.
Enjoy.
Keep in mind that I’ve only come to appreciate and even notice these little quirks way on the other side of everything that happened during the rollercoaster, washing machine, never ending nightmare saga that was recovery (a story for another time).
Now, that I am recovered the truth of what recovered means has been revealed to me and it is, in a nutshell, simply experiencing the process of living.
I now get to move through life as nothing more and nothing less than a regular little human bean doing her thing to make this Earth a more magical place to live for all it’s wonderful inhabitants.
Every now and then as I go about my business, I am reminded of something which used to be one way when I was sick and is now another.
Today I wanted to capture a few of those and quickly share with you just 3 of the lesser known and semi-unique to me things which I’ve noticed in my life now as recovered because it truly is the little things that add up to a different life.
I want you to know that while recovery and getting free of the eating disorder may be your highest of high goals now one day you will realise that getting free was just the beginning and there is so much more to life.
Mental health is more than the absence of mental illness.
In any case I love capturing and celebrating those things that could easily go unnoticed.
So, here is just a quick selection of just 3 of the little quirks I took a moment to wonder upon.
- Sweat
When I was sick, I never broke a sweat.
I thought I was someone who just didn’t sweat.
I thought that that was just who I was.
For a uni subject one time we had to do a hydration test to see how much fluid our bodies used during exercise and therefore how much we’d theoretically have to drink to not get dehydrated and impact our sporting performance.
This involved a 1.5hr intense spin cycle class at the gym in which we measured our weight before and after the exercise to calculate our fluid losses.
My weight didn’t change.
I didn’t sweat.
Fast-forward a few years and I now sweat.
I discovered that I now sweat while having sex one day actually.
I sweated a lot and it was completely new to me (it felt nice fyi).
I was amazed and excited at this completely foreign experience my body was going through (I don’t think he gave a damn).
Ps. I am sorry to all the people I judged as “unfit” while you sweated during sex.
I get it, now.
You weren’t unfit. You were healthy.
And now I am too.
2. Smile
When I was sick, I smiled with only half my mouth*
*unless I was dancing and then it was always a full smile.
Interesting though, huh?
The smile thing, just like the sweat thing was also something I never took note of when I was sick because again, I thought it was “just me” and just the way I was.
I thought it was just the way I smiled.
It’s quite a while ago now that I first realised I was now smiling differently and I’ve thought about it a little (not too much because it simply is what it is and I can appreciate it without a full psychoanalysis) since then. What I’ve come to realise is that when I smiled that half smile the half which didn’t smile was because it was frozen under what I can best describe as the weight of the world – guilt, shame and the ever present fear of being “seen”.
I didn’t feel worthy of happiness and joy.
Not when other people in the world were suffering.
I didn’t want to be seen or take attention away from anyone else that may need it.
I didn’t want anyone to feel lesser beside me.
A part of me believed if I shrivelled and hid and kept my happiness from the world then I was somehow helping others.
This part of me showed up unconsciously in my physical appearance in many ways including that weird never full smile.
I now know your feeling bad doesn’t take their pain away.
I now know that taking care of yourself rather than succumbing to the overwhelm and magnitude of the problem allows us to work in ways to create change and help lessen the suffering of the world consistently each and every day and that is how change will become not just possible but inevitable.
Our Deepest Fear
—by Marianne Williamson
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous,
talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other
people won’t feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest the glory of
God that is within us.
It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people
permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
Our presence automatically liberates others.
3. Waking Up Free
Ok, this one is actually a pretty big one (even if it doesn’t sound that way to read because as with all of recovery and indeed all of life the difference between the understanding and the experience is where the magic lies).
When I was sick, I would wake up at 4am with a hit of adrenaline.
Every day.
No joke.
It didn’t matter if I went to bed at 8pm or 3am.
Every morning was the same.
Wake up, heart thumbing, sinking feeling in my stomach, electricity coursing through my veins and the uncontrollable need to get out.
The uncontrollable need to run.
I thought I was “a morning person”.
I thought I was claustrophobic.
Again, I thought this was just who I was.
Turns out it wasn’t (any of those things).
Turns out it was my body producing an unconscious fight or flight response to a world that was overwhelming to my starved, malnourished and confused brain.
Turns out now I can stay in bed until (and this record was set just two weekends ago) 9am.
That’s a full 5 hours beyond what I’d ever have considered within the possibility of even my wildest dreams during my illness.
More importantly though, for me is not the time factor but the difference in how I feel when I wake up.
When I was sick, before I’d even opened my eyes a brutal and unrelenting cocktail of sheer panic coupled with dread would rush through me. I’d literally sit bolt upright and immediately out of bed to run.
Now I wake up and I usually feel happy or at least calm and with a sense of purpose.
I wake up knowing I have choice in what I think, feel and do next and in comparison, to a reality in which I once had none this is a luxury I cannot begin to describe.
I wake up knowing today is an unprecedented opportunity for learning, growth, connection and contribution.
That feels like sunshine.
Parting Words and Your Turn to Share Your Unforeseen Recovery Quirks
It truly is the smallest of changes that add up to the hugest of changes and which themselves add up to a completely different life.
Would you consider capturing some of yours and allowing yourself a moment of appreciation and gratitude as you do.
Would you consider thanking yourself for putting in the work that made those little quirks and perks your reality?
If you feel inspired to share a quirky little change you’ve noticed, then please do so in the comments below or send me an email because I’d really love to hear a little thing which changed for you or you’ve noticed is changing!…
With My Whole Heart I Hope You Found These Words Useful and Inspiring.
Become Great. Live Great.
Bonnie.
