"It looks like you've gained some weight"

Seven words that opened the door to terrible disordered thinking.

I woke up this morning, looking forward to seeing my nutritionist even though I'd had a few difficult spots that last week. I got dressed in new jeans and a blouse that was the perfect coloring for me. I put on make-up, picked out great jewelry. And when I looked in the mirror, I smiled at myself and told myself that I felt beautiful today.

After my appointment, I drove up to see my grandparents and stop at my folks' house to get some old pictures. While at my grandparents, I told them about what I've been up to lately, blah, blah, blah. I made a comment about candy. My grandpa asked if I ate candy. I told him I do, but not much. And he said:

"That makes sense then. IT LOOKS LIKE YOU'VE GAINED SOME WEIGHT."

That's when my brain shut off. Instant trigger. Immediate, uncontrolled ED thoughts. I KNEW he didn't mean it like a slam. Because I did hear him say, "You looked so skinny before, you look better now." Ok. He meant I look healthy now. He's old. He wouldn't hurt me. But the words stung.

I have not heard those words in almost three years. And they hurt 600 million times more today than when I really was fat and really had gained another 30 pounds in a month. The words came out of the blue and caught me so off-guard I couldn't stop the ED thoughts. Right away I felt 100 pounds heavier. I was worried that how I was sitting on the couch was showing fat rolls. I wondered if I really had gained weight and how the hell was I going to take it off.

I had brought a camera with me because, since I felt so good about how I looked in the morning, I wanted my mom to take a picture of me so that I can say "You felt beautiful when you looked like this." And maybe I'd see the beautiful me.

When I got to my parents' house, I did have my mom take a full-length photo of myself. When I looked at it, I saw FAT. I saw someone who probably weighs about 200 pounds. I saw ugly and failure and never-quite-good-enough.

I KNOW that I didn't change between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. I had even touched up my lipstick! But how I saw myself was a 180 degree turn.

Since then, I have been MEAN and HORRIBLE to myself. While looking through family photos, I just saw fat girl at 1, fat girl at 2, fat girl at 3, fat girl at 4... I had hoped to look at the photos and see a happy girl in one or two pictures. I know she was smiling; I know she had to have been happy. All I could think, though, was that the poor girl was doomed to grow up to be a fat ugly slob.

Old tapes are running non-stop in my head, not even drowned out by Louise Hay's audio affirmations. Not even silenced by the smiles of my nieces. Mean. Mean. Mean. And nasty. Last week my ED therapist said that I'd never tell my 7-year-old self that she was fat. I shouldn't do it now. But I couldn't stop. I almost wanted to relive all that pain. How friggin' sick is that?

I understand that this is my eating disorder. I hate that it's there. I hate that it kidnapped me. I hate that even when I try to make it go away, it is stronger than I am tonight. In my head. I haven't binged. I haven't purged. I am toying with restricting, but I won't do that.

Sunday I started this new thing where I write an affirmation down on a large desk calendar in the morning and then in the evening, I have to write at least 3 good things that I did for myself during the day. Sunday was stellar. Monday...even though it's technically Tuesday morning, I have no idea what to write that's positive about how I treated myself today. I feel like all the negative self-hatred has cancelled out the care I put out this morning. That's not true. It just how I think right now.

Thankfully I see my therapist in the morning. I hope I wake up in a better place than where I am now. I hate it. I resent it. I need to direct that at the eating disorder and not myself. I get that. However, the ED keeps slinging it back and I'm feeling beaten down.

This won't last forever. I know that I can snap out of it. I realize that this is temporary. And I know that, no matter what my eating disorder tells me, I really did feel beautiful at one time today.