A wise man once told me not just to hear him but to listen. Pitbull was overflowing with life lessons when I saw him live on an open-air stage a few months ago. Turns out both Pitbull and Kevin have more in common than I thought. Both are outdated. Both negatively objectify bodies. Both are parts of my past that I struggle to let go. However, the strongest parallel is that they both say the same things to me, with an overwhelming need to exert their control, they really want me to actively listen and absorb their words of “wisdom.” Take their profound advice with me in my daily life.
It is really hard to explain that I might be eating more, looking healthier, and returning to a fuller version of myself, but the voice has not gone away. I can always hear it. Every single freaking day.
Don’t eat this, eat that. Add less butter, add more. Is that too much? Are you overeating? Work the food off. You are getting fat. Your body is undesirable. Those clothes don’t look good at this weight. You need to walk an extra 200 steps. If you have pudding now, don’t have it later. You just wasted a meal. You are eating too fast. The food is now lukewarm, you should reheat it, and sit in that specific chair at a certain angle for the optimum food experience. You can get your period and still restrict. That almond milk has fewer calories, choose that one. Put less milk in your tea, save calories. Sleep more, more time to digest your food and less likely you are to put on weight. Don’t wrap up warm because then you could lose some fat. Do people think I am restricting? Don’t eat the nibbles, save room for dinner. Don’t check if the pasta is cooked, it is not your meal, extra calories you don’t need. Don’t have mayonnaise, have ketchup, fewer calories…
There is a lot more that occupies my daily monologue, but there is the brief highlight of my constant swirling thoughts. I have heard this dialect everyday for almost two years. I lie in bed every night before bed and break down everything I ate, and then I plan for the next day's food. This is a good day. On the bad days, the dialogue is not so kind and scarily extreme.
Kevin does not want me to just hear the anxieties, criticisms, and need for control. Kevin wants me to listen. In recovery, I have varied in my ability to resist listening. When I become emotionally drained or triggered, often after drinking, I listen a lot more.
The reset is going well and I have stayed on track for a week! I have bananas everyday and am eating all my meals and snacks. Things went wrong this semester when I started to listen. I know every time I listen and begin to believe the lies it never ends well. When I listen, the dialogue becomes more extreme and so do my behaviours. Kevin never is says the right thing, and he does not want what is best for me. However, he constantly tries to convince me of the opposite.
I have gone back to my foundational building blocks: food is my medicine and excessive exercise is the enemy. As I learnt on my first day of day treatment, if the foundation is not there, you can’t build the blocks to recover! Now, I am trying to figure out how to maintain the resilience to only hear Kevin and not listen when the goings get tough.
Comments