#ed warrior
Weekend Survival Guide
When you have an ED pecking away at your mind, weekends - something most people await with knee-trembling impatience, to you become a free roaming, untamed beast ready to swallow you alive. As if it’s not bad enough that having an eating disorder sucks in general but when something that is supposed to bring you joy and fill you with anticipation instead incites panic and fear, that’s just a cruel joke, right!?
Eating disorders take the idea of “the weekend” and completely distort your perspective causing you to instead see weekends as basically mine fields of unstructured time, 48 hours full of nothing but sitting with your urges, thoughts, loneliness and with your most depressing playlist shuffled on repeat while “everyone you know” is basking in the warm April sunshine without a care. Does this sound like something you might have gone through / are going through? I know I’ve been there and it completely blows! Since the weekend is just a few hours away, how about a survival guide? Without further babble, these 2 coping strategies worked wonders for me:
1. Take the “Un” out of “Unstructured”
How do we make unstructured time less scary? We structure it! Oh, that’s common sense you say? Yes it is but very few of us actually put in the effort in taking steps to avoid unstructured time during your days off. What you need to do is, on whatever day is your last working / school day, sit down and break each day of your weekend down into planned-out chunks that leave no room for sitting with your skewed ED thoughts. Try to be as specific as possible and account for every minute of your day if you must. Avoid ambiguous activities like “Do something until 1pm” because guess what that “something” will turn into? Nothing pleasant, that’s for sure!
Example)
8 am - Wake up, make coffee and read 10 pages of my new book.
8:45 am - Jump in the shower and get ready/dressed for the day.
9:30 am - Make and eat breakfast according to my MP.
10:15 am - Call grandma and chat for a while - I’ve been putting it off.
and so on…
Might seem micro-managey BUT trust me, if weekends always sneak up on you and toss you out of the recovery wagon out of nowhere, micromanaging your time will do wonders in preventing that from happening this weekend too!
2. Sabotage your ED!
Your eating disorder is not your friend. In fact, it’s the exact opposite of a friend - it’s the most evil and abusive asshole in your life at the moment (hopefully the only one!) So why grant ED the power to ruin a perfectly good weekend (again) by giving him what he needs to make you miserable? What the hell am I talking about!? Well…you might be giving your ED several weapons that he WILL use against you come Saturday:
- You might be buying foods you KNOW you binge on during your grocery run.
- You might be scouting a new workout outfit that shows off your emaciated body because you have a 5-hour date with the Gym planned.
- You might be telling a friend that’s inviting you to hang out this weekend that you’re “sooo… busy” knowing full well you’re not.
Catch my drift?
The thing is, though, you actually have the power to say “You know what ED? No! You don’t get to destroy yet another weekend!” You have the power to let those urges and thoughts pass through your mind without tossing the keys to your future in their grimy, misery-toting invisible fingers by giving them your time of day. It won’t be easy because you’re used to stepping down and complying with the voices in your head and you WILL have to force yourself to go against them at first which WILL take effort and emotional energy on your part BUT guess what, as difficult as that will be - think of HOW difficult it will be to pick yourself up after you fall off that wagon again?
Think of how miserable you will inevitably feel after you do what the voices in your mind tell you and everything hurts and you’re crying yourself to sleep at night yet again. I guarantee you that the latter will be MUCH harder on you.
Luckily it’s completely up to you in this moment to make the decision to go one way or the other and I am confident that you CAN choose the still difficult but later rewarding path!
In summary:
- Micromanage the hell out of your weekend by planning it out in as much detail as possible before Saturday morning rolls around.
- Force yourself to go against the voices in your head that are telling you to “buy this gallon of ice cream because ‘this time will be different!’” and other things you KNOW for a fact are a recipe for nothing but disaster.
Do these two things and your body, mind and spirit will thank you for it come Monday. You will also feel super proud of yourself and stand tall like a champion rather than slouch like a wilted flower because ED has beaten you down again. If I could do it when I was in your shoes, you can do it too!
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“and I said to my body . softly. ‘i want to be your friend.’ it took a long breath. and replied, ‘i have been waiting my whole life for this’”
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For a really long time I didn’t think I’d ever feel beautiful..
Then one evening…
I had gotten out of the shower and was getting ready to head out with friends when I stopped to look in the mirror. And I stared, as I usually do, overanalyzing every detail.. Then I took a step back, I looked at myself, naked and sopping wet, and said aloud, “You know what? I am fucking cute.” And as if a curse had been lifted, I felt this huge weight lift off my shoulders. So I said it louder, more excited this time as I smiled real big at myself, “I really am cute!”. And just like that my brain began to rewire itself. My drearily consistent neurological pathways were suddenly taking a turn and one I quickly recognized as enjoyable. Every feature I ever despised of myself, from my tall nose, to my assymetrical eyes, seemed so much less important. It was almost silly to me, that I never saw past those things in the first place. I started to realize that the person I am is a whole lot better than I think.
While I have been put down for my looks in the past, it occurred to me there were dozens of people, both online and irl, who thought of and saw me differently. They see me as beautiful and go out of their way to tell me this, yet I was putting priority on those who just sought my downfall instead. I became sickeningly aware of how much weight I put on these negative thoughts about myself, how much time I spent despising myself, for NO reason other than not achieving societies idea of perfection. Well, Im achieving my own perfection, one that not everyone will like, one that society might reject, but one that I know I will love and one that I know the people I care about will love. Both inside and out.
Its important if youve been chasing youre idea self, that the self youre after isnt predetermined by what society will like, or what some guy who trash talked you will like, or what some stingy bitch who gossiped about you will like. Instead, chase after a you that embraces your already naturally beautiful qualities, one that enhances those things and strives to make the people who are important to you happy. You might not have the most symmetrical face in the world, you might feel too tall or too short, too skinny or too fat, but Im here to tell you youre not ‘too’ anything except for too hard on yourself. Stop rejecting who you are, embrace it. You need to work on bettering the things you love about yourself instead of trying to get change the things you despise. And I promise that once you refocus on what you love instesd of what you hate, the world will become a lot brighter from day to day ♡
