As children, we learn about dragons in the fairytales that our parents tell us and through the television shows and movies that we watch. Dragons exist in a fantasy world. They are mythical creatures that have a powerful yet mysterious presence. Often, dragons are seen as monsters. They are giant reptiles, typically fire-breathing creatures, that symbolize chaos, fear and evil.
What we do not learn as children is that dragons not only exist in a fantasy world; they exist in the real world too. They have lived in my world for most of my life. We all have dragons within us. The lucky ones are able to maintain control over their dragons. However, for some of us, the dragons cannot be kept silent. They roar with anger. And with every bit of power that they have, they try to break us. They try to defeat us. And, sometimes, they do. I first learned about my own dragon when I was 13 years old. I was overweight most of my childhood and had a really tough time in middle school. I was bullied about my weight and eventually realized that if I didn’t eat, I would lose weight and I would lose it fast. When this happened and the weight disappeared, I realized that the bullying ended too. During this time, my brain spoke louder to me than it ever had before. It told me that because I was now skinny, I would no longer be targeted by my peers. Now that I was skinny, I had control over something since I couldn’t control being bullied. But, what my brain didn’t tell me was now that I was skinny, I had a much larger problem on my hands. Now that I was skinny, my brain made the irrational connection that, as long as I was skinny, I would be in control of my happiness. But, in reality, now that I was skinny, I had developed a serious problem that could have eventually taken my life. I didn’t realize that this was the beginning of an eating disorder and a battle against it that would manifest itself throughout my life. I didn’t realize that my eating disorder would also impact everyone around me. And, I certainly didn’t realize that this eating disorder could have killed me. My eating disorder was always a part of my life since the age of 13. It would pop in and out of my life, especially when I was going through a difficult time. To be completely honest, I knew something was wrong. I knew I had an issue. But, I didn’t think I had a problem. I thought I was doing a pretty good job at managing how I ate and what I ate. And, in my eyes, if I overate or ate something that I felt guilty about eating, I would purge, exercise to an excess or just not eat the next day. I thought I was in control. I thought I had this all figured out. I told myself that since I wasn’t doing this every day, I didn’t have a problem. So, in my head, I rationalized how my “issue” was okay and how I was allowed to have it. And, I believed that for a long time. In reality, my eating “habits” were in fact a problem. They became an even larger problem about 6 months into my mother’s illness. I was struggling watching my mother die a slow and painful death. The words do not exist to describe what it is like to watch someone that you love slowly fade away. I did everything that I could do to try and hold it together, not even for myself, but for my mother. I couldn’t. I was falling apart. I felt like I couldn’t control anything. My mother was dying and I couldn’t control that or her pancreatic cancer from spreading. I also couldn’t control when a man I thought I would marry one day, left me in the midst of my mother’s death. With my life falling apart into pieces right in front of my eyes, my dragon eventually reappeared. However, this time, my dragon was different. This time, it was completely unmanageable. I couldn’t contain it. It took over my entire life with such force and fiery and I lost complete control over myself. It was no longer an issue that popped in and out of my life at random times. Instead, for four years, I lived every single minute of every single day at the mercy of my dragon. I was intertwined in the vicious cycle of an eating disorder and I wasn’t able to truly free myself from it until February 18th, 2017. February 18th, 2017 is the day that I found life again. It’s the day I began to love myself again. A few weeks before February 18th, I woke up one morning and looked at myself in the mirror. I was disgusted with what I saw. I finally recognized what everyone else saw and what they were speculating about me. I finally admitted to myself that I was really sick. I was allowing my eating disorder to slowly kill me. I was exhausted. My eating disorder had drained me physically and emotionally. I could no longer hide it. I didn’t have the strength too. I remember telling myself that I needed to get help. I needed to fully commit to getting better, no matter what I had to do. I told myself that if I was not going to be committed to complete recovery, my only other choice was to allow my eating disorder to kill me. It was at that moment that I chose to fight. I chose to live. And, I haven’t looked back since that date. This year, I celebrated a day in my life that I never saw possible. I never, in a million years, thought that I could live my life without an eating disorder. And, today, I’ve lived 376 days without it. February 18th, 2018 was one of the best days of my life. It was my first year in complete recovery. It will forever be the one thing that I am most proud of, and, it is finally mine. It is my recovery. I want you to know how difficult it has been for me, not only to admit to myself and to others that I had a serious problem, but to fight like hell to defeat it. I’m a therapist and I’m a damn good one. In the midst of my eating disorder, I constantly beat myself up by asking myself how could I actually be a good therapist and help others, but yet be incapable of helping myself. This played a huge role in my denial about how sick I really was. The constant emotional abuse I took from my own mind created my shame. I was so ashamed of myself. I hated myself. Sometimes, I even wanted to die. And, for the rest of my life, I will struggle knowing that while my mother was dying, she was worried about me because she knew that I was sick. She knew I was falling apart. If there is one thing I could change in my life it would be that. But, I recognize that I cannot change that and I have had to come to terms with that. It has taken me a long time to accept that guilt and to begin the process of forgiving myself. This has been a battle that I couldn’t have taken on alone. I am forever grateful to all of the people in my life who never stopped believing in me, especially when I stopped believing in myself. To those who refused to give up on me, when it would have been easier for me to relapse and give up all hope. Thank you. Thank you for helping me, to help myself, so that I could save my life. A person’s addiction can often become their “friend” in life. In my case, my addiction was an eating disorder and it never left my side since the age of 13. It was always the one constant in my life. Although my eating disorder was my friend, I learned that it was also my worst enemy and that it would eventually destroy me. Recognizing this hasn’t been easy. Giving up the only thing you think you can control is one of the most difficult things I have ever had to do. Most importantly, what I’ve realized throughout my journey of recovery, is that fairytales are more than just true. Not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they also tell us that dragons can be beaten and we can survive. National Eating Disorders Hotline: 1-800-931-2237 It has been a long time since I have blogged. But, I knew that when I eventually wrote again, this would be my first story. And, I vowed to myself that I wouldn’t write again, until I could tell this story.
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I believe in soul mates. I believe that we can find soul mates in all different types of relationships including romantic ones as well as in friendships. In my eyes, a soul mate is someone that your soul knows. There is a deep connection between the two of you that is often unexplainable. You might even feel as if you have known that person your entire life. Talking with a soul mate comes naturally. You yearn to tell that person everything about yourself and when that person speaks, you hang onto every word that he or she is saying. It is an indescribable feeling; an extraordinary connection between the two of you. A friend once described to me that when meeting your soul mate, it is like your soul is saying, “Hey, there you are. I’ve been looking for you”. Unfortunately, not all of us are lucky enough to meet our soul mate(s). This does not mean that we cannot love our significant others or have amazing friendships. I think a soul mate is different than that and it is a different kind of relationship. I am one of the lucky ones. I’ve met one of my soul mates and I know what that connection feels like. It is amazing and the chemistry between us was nothing like I had ever felt before. He is one of my soul mates. And he, in particular, is my “Iris”. I met Derek over ten years ago while on vacation with my cousin in Mexico. I can remember the first time we noticed one another. I was sitting at an outside bar, at the hotel with my cousin, when Derek and his two friends came over and sat down near us. I locked eyes with Derek and found myself unable to take my eyes off of him. Partly because I found him to be incredibly handsome and the other part of me was trying to figure out what language he and his friends were speaking. It was only a matter of time before they introduced themselves to us. Luckily, they spoke English fluently. I found Derek captivating. He was good looking, charming, intelligent, successful, cultured and much more. But, there was a peculiar connection I felt with him and, at that time, I did not understand it. I gravitated towards him and it felt like I had known him my whole life. My cousin and I spent the entire week with Derek and his friends while in Mexico. My relationship with Derek was strictly platonic at the time. Although, I remember that I desperately wanted him to kiss me. He didn’t. He didn’t even try. To my surprise, I would come to find out years later that not kissing me in Mexico was one of his biggest regrets. It was one of mine as well. However, that trip and meeting him still remains one of the best vacations that I have ever been on. Throughout the years, Derek and I kept in contact. Mainly we communicated via E-mail, but there were a few instances where we spoke on the phone for hours. A few times we attempted to make plans to meet up again, but life got in the way and those plans always seemed to fall through. As time passed, we both found ourselves in other relationships. However, we maintained innocent sporadic contact. Flash forward to ten years after our initial meeting in Mexico. Derek knew that my mother was sick and when my ex boyfriend and I broke up, he was aware of that as well. He knew I was distraught and in pain. He said he could hear it in my voice when we spoke. He could feel my agony and he knew that I was slowly heading towards my breaking point. So, he suggested we spend the weekend together. Derek lives in another country and was coming to New York City for work in July. With my mother’s encouragement, I decided to take him up on his offer in spending time with him. I needed to escape from the reality of my situation. Even if it was a temporary escape, I wanted to have a few days where I could try to live a normal life again. But, most of all, I was desperate to see Derek. It had been ten years too long. I wanted to see him, touch him, and to feel him hold me. I took the train into the city on July 11, 2013 to meet Derek. I remember that weekend and that train ride as if it were yesterday. I sat there looking out the window completely calm. I was not the slightest bit nervous about seeing him again. I recall thinking to myself how incredibly crazy this was; meeting up with a man that I had only met once ten years ago. However, it felt right and I knew that I would regret it if I did not go. Pulling up to the hotel was the first moment that I felt a bit of anxiety. I texted Derek letting him know that I was there and he told me to meet him in the lobby. I got to the lobby before Derek and I anxiously stared at the elevator waiting for the doors to open and for him to appear. It seemed like I was waiting forever but, in reality, it was only minutes before the elevator doors opened and he walked out. Immediately, time seemed to stop and I could hear the rhythm of my heart beat faster and faster. We embraced and it felt as if only ten minutes went by since we last saw one another rather than ten years. I could have melted right there and then in his arms. Our reunion was natural; it was meant to be. At that moment in time, I was supposed to be there with Derek. He was put into my life for a reason. The 48 hours we spent together was one of the best experiences of my life. I needed it and I really needed it then. We talked about everything. We had so much catching up to do. For the first time in a long time, I let my guard down. I told him how scared I was that my mother was going to die and that I didn’t think I’d be able to live without her. This was the first time I had said that sentence out loud. It played over and over again in my mind, but I had yet to tell anyone how I was feeling. Derek comforted me and I felt safe. While in his arms, I felt like I would survive no matter what would be the outcome of my mother’s situation. For ten years Derek and I spoke about that kiss we never had in Mexico. The kiss that both of us anticipated one day experiencing. Well, that kiss was absolutely worth the wait. The chemistry between us was undeniable. I had never experienced a kiss or an emotional connection like that before. I could have stared into his baby blue eyes for a lifetime. It was in those eyes that I saw the person that I was before my mother became ill. It was in those eyes that I saw a future for myself again. My weekend with Derek took me away from the reality of my situation and showed me what it was like to feel again since I had been living in a state of numbness for so long. I smiled. I laughed. I didn’t think about what pancreatic cancer was taking from me. I felt alive inside again. He brought out something in me that had been hidden for the last year. He brought out my will to live, my desire to be happy and the insight to know that I could. From the minute of that first embrace, I dreaded the time that would inevitably come where we would have to say goodbye. As Derek opened the door to the taxi, we looked at one another with tears in our eyes. He gently took his hands, held my face, and said that he would never say goodbye to me; for goodbyes are final. He softly kissed my forehead and said that he would see me later. When I got into the taxi, I began to quietly sob. Partly because I knew I would probably never see Derek again and the other part of me knew I was coming home to my dying mother. Regardless of the many tears I shed that day, and whether or not I ever see him again, I am forever grateful for that weekend and for Derek. He gave me life again. I believe in soul mates. I believe that I have met one of mine. Derek was put into my life over ten years ago for a reason. And, maybe that reason was because we would spend that one weekend together in the midst of my mother’s death, which would ignite in me the strength, courage, and will to go on. I’m not sure that I will ever meet another soul mate like Derek. However, I am at peace with that. Through finding myself again while with Derek, I realized that I do have the ability to love and to be happy with someone that I choose to truly give myself too. Someone that I allow to see inside my soul, to hear my fears, to know my deepest secrets, and most importantly someone that I allow myself to be happy with. I embrace the idea of allowing another soul mate to enter into my life. I look forward to sharing the world with that person and experiencing all that life has to offer with him. I anticipate the day when I will find that connection again. I believe in soul mates. And, even if it was only for a brief moment in time, I was lucky enough to meet one of mine. For Derek is my “Iris”. *Names have been changed *Written November 2015 |
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