Maybe It's Time to Write

I've been wanting to write an article, a book, a note, something for awhile. Something that would allow me to tell my story, give it meaning or just talk it through. BUT when I start to think about it, I'm not sure where to begin or even which story to tell or if any of them are even worth telling.

Do I talk about falling in love with the scale the summer I was 10 and recovering from hepatitis? Or maybe I would write about feeling overwhelmed and sleep deprived when my kids were babies - when I nursed too long just to lose weight -- or the hypoglycemia that I struggled with that in actuality didn't exist. (It's funny how when you're starving yourself how your blood sugar will be low.)

Or may I could write about when I was hospitalized when the kids were in elementary school for overdosing on sleeping pills? The psychiatrist then asked me outright if I had anorexia. I told him he was the one that was crazy -- and I really believed what I was saying.

Would I start a book talking about my grandparents' deaths and the journey those events started? Of course, I could write an anthology about a 25 year marriage that I walked out on and what brought me to such an extreme decision.

I could share about time spent at Ten Broeck, a mental hospital, on a 72 hour holdl, with a system full of pain killers, cuts and stitches all over my body, a wrecked car, but still feeling that I was sane and the rest of the world had gone crazy.

I could write about the time spent at Renfrew, drying out and fattening up, searching for my own sense of worth, thinking I could be "cured" in 30 days.

There's the year and a half I've spent in recovery -- going to therapy, practicing coping strategies, lapsing into moments of despair then finding my way again.

There might be a book in the way that Grace, my dog, has been a major player in my sustained recovery, even though on the outside it looks as if I rescued her. A book could come easily with the hours and hours I've spent with Erika, my therapist, talking about "new rooms," staying out of my head, discussing if I'm willing to leave the eating disorder behind for good, and realizing I'm not sure what my answer is to that question. . . still. (It is an old friend, after all.)

I could write about the new relationships I have with my kids, my mom and dad, my friends or the joy I experience each day hanging out with 5th graders in my classroom.

Do the details of the journey make a difference? Is it even worth remembering?

Erika says it's a fine line to walk. I should never allow myself to forget how far I've come and the work I've done, but in remembering, I certainly can't romanticize the disorder or downplay the havoc it brought to my life and the scars that will always remain. I have to write as a healthy woman with a full, rich life, who happens to have a mental illness, NOT as a woman whose life is full of the mental illness. Fortunately, the mentally ill me doesn't show up too often any more so maybe it's time to start writing.

I suppose the bigger story has been told by others more eloquently than I ever could. Quite simply, I was lost but now am found. Maybe that's everybody's story.