Dealing With ED

I feel like a fraud.

I finished my memoir about my meth addiction and recovery. I signed with an agent. I've worked with two editors and am beginning the final draft of the book. And I feel like it's all bullshit. All I've done is trade one addiction for another.

I've struggled with bulimia and compulsive overeating all my life. This is my eating disorder. My ED. It started when I was twelve years old. The only time I've been free from it is when I've been on drugs. It's amazing what cocaine, prescription diet pills and/or meth will do for and eating disorder. Why, the ED just disappears! But take away the drugs and here we go again.

So I'm a fraud.

It's all the same thing - numbing out. Things or ways to distract me from whatever demons I'm still running from. I thought I was fixed. I thought I was all better. I thought that being drug and alcohol free meant everything was okay. But it's not. I'm not.

So I put myself in Fat Chick Rehab at my parent's house a few weeks ago, and it's helped. (My parents are truly wonderful people. They're the ones who made it possible for me to go to drug rehab.)  I've lost weight - the healthy way - and started exercising every day. Being with Mom and Dad has helped get me on the right track.  It's also been a reminder of the origin of my eating disorder. So I'm moving back home this weekend.

My parents aren't the cause of my bulimia any more than they're the cause of my drug addiction. They didn't cause it, and they can't fix it. I have to do that. So I'm going back to a therapist I saw ten years ago who specializes in eating disorders. I quit seeing her because my ED disappeared.

I didn't tell her I'd started doing cocaine and prescription diet pills. This time I will.