Keep smiling on… :)
Hehe I looooove this movie. Beauty & the Beast is a perfect example of loving someone for who they are and not what they look like. Got to love the life lessons of Disney movies!
One of my old friend Keri shared this story with me a while back. Read how someone taught her that she was beautiful AND she deserved to live. Keri is a very beautiful girl with a heart of gold, I only wish her the best in life :)
On may 15th of 2009 I woke up to a smoke filled apartment. My roomate and I started into the hall looking for an escape. We went to go down the steps outside of our door but the flames were already there. We decided that our only way to escape was to jump out of our 2nd story window. Luckily a fireman had found us. By some miracle we had made it out alive! I looked around frantically for my boyfriend Max, only to find that he wasn’t out yet. After 2 hours he was pulled from the burning Bellevue mansions. he wasn’t breathing and was rushed to the hospital. I waited patiently for some kind of cheerful response via cellphone. Max was my first true love. from the first time we had met we were completely inseparable! I loved that boy more than life itself. At 19years old wanting marriage and a future with max was a huge deal! He was my life. Instead of having my dreams come true, max passed away that day. For well over half a year I contemplated my suicide. I hated myself. why did I leave max earlier that day? Why didn’t I just sleep over like I did most nights? Why did I survive but not him? It wasn’t fair…”Wow! You have really beautiful eyes!” Those were the 6 words that saved my life! His name is Joseph Hundley! He stumbled into my life by accident and convinced me to live again. He held my hands as I cried about max’s passing, he told me it wasn’t my fault when I argued different, he loved me even when I still loved Max. He is a real man! After all of the crap he had to put up with, he kept on fighting! Now he is my fiancé! I will always love Max, but now I have my Joseph to remind me to love me first! I love him!
Every shape, every size, every color, ever imperfection IS BEAUTIFUL. Just don’t forget it :)
Is Recovery Really Worth it?
Sometimes, on forums I frequent (or used to frequent) on eating disorders there would often be posts from someone discouraged about how useful recovery was. Someone who was doing well and then had a personal setback of some sort - struggles with school or work or relationships, a death of someone close to them, etc. They miss their eating disorder, and wonder what is the point of recovering if life not going to be great anyway? If you’re going to struggle, why not struggle with something familiar and safe? I used to wonder these questions myself sometimes.
However, the question “Is recovery worth it” isn’t really the right question. This is not a recovery thing, this is a life thing.
And life can be painful. Life in recovery, even when you are doing well and coping the best you can, is simply hard sometimes. It doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you. It doesn’t mean recovery has failed you either. It’s just hard. For everyone, at some point. Maybe even harder for us having been through what we’ve been through.
The difference is that when you’re actively engaged in your eating disorder, you aren’t really living life. Superficially, you may be capable of going through the motions in your daily activities (or not - I certainly wasn’t, after a certain point), but you know damn well that that kind of life is not a life at all. You aren’t tuned in. You aren’t building real relationships. The only thing you have true loyalty is your ED, which occupies your brain 24/7, making it possible to truly enjoy very little.
I’m going to be honest. In hindsight, I think at the worst of my eating disorder, on some level, it really was easier. I could numb out. I didn’t have to think. I didn’t feel true pain and sadness and anxiety, only the pain and sadness and anxiety of an eating disorder. It’s a lot easier to obsess over your number on the scale every day or what you’re going to eat or when you’re going to binge and purge than to have anxiety or uncertainty over whether or not you really have friends, or whether you’re doing well in school, or what you really want to do with your life on a long term basis. Food is easy. Life is not.
But the upside is that if you have a life - if you manage to break and stay free from your eating disorder - you have the capacity for joy, love, and hope that you do not have without it. The pain feels sharper, but the pleasure feels so much more real. You’re living genuinely. You’re proud of yourself. You no longer feel helpless. Things are still hard, but you are living.
Don’t be a marytr. Don’t fool yourself into thinking you really want or enjoy your eating disorder. Recovery is worth it. Life is worth it too.
Dear body,
I just wanted to tell you how sorry I am for all the years of verbal, mental and physical abuse. It wasn’t fair how I would belittle you and tell you how worthless and ugly you were. It was terrible how I would starve you for days or throw up the wonderful meal your husband bought you, just because you felt like you weren’t “perfect”. I’m sorry for the disgusting names I called you, and I’m sorry you thought about them everyday. I’m proud that you were able to overcome everything and forgive me for treating you so terribly. I know everyday is a struggle, but I am so glad to have YOU for a body. Thank you for giving me another chance.
<3 Me (Sarah)
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