Ok. So this is going to be a difficult blog. I'm writing it remotely from an iPhone on a train and am hoping to upload it at sometime soon.

I think, no I know, this week has been very tough.

I sort of hate myself. Every year I go into edaw and people tell me I am doing too much and that I always end up suffering. I tell them that I'd suffer more by not doing it, and that all the support and awareness stuff really helps me.

But every year i end up restricting and self harming.

This year has been completely different. I've still done all the bad stuff but it's not because of the edaw stuff I've been doing, it's because edaw has made me really touch base on where I am and where I'm going.

And in truth. I was messed up before edaw.

Edaw has proved to be an amazingly good thing (in the long run) but a difficult one in the short term. Reading so much about peoples past problems and hearing them so openly type about things has made me, well jealous.

I'm so guarded about things. And I have never properly dealt with things because of it. or maybe its the other way round.

I think what im trying to say is the following:
I can live without the ed, I am in recovery. But i am never going to be totally recovered without dealing with all the stuff.

I like me, I know that i deserve to be looked after and I know that living with an ed is a bad thing and i know I am going to be able to keep fighting it.
But I dont want to keep fighting it. I want it gone completely.

But, when things go wrong. I turn to it.

I turn to it because it's what i know, but it's what I feel i deserve. I deserve the pain and punishment of the ed. I deserve the self harm.

I know I don't? But my brain doesn't know. It automatically takes over!

The reason: because I've dealt with the eating disorder, but I've never dealt with the cause.

It's this reason I get stresses when my life seams uncertain. It's this reason I cut myself when my partner dismisses me. Etc etc

It's not these things that cause a relapse. It's not these, or even edaw, that has caused this current relapse.

It's because i never dealt with what caused the initial lapse and I'm jealous of everyone who has.

That's why edaw is tough. Because I'm jealous of everyone else who is recovered. Because I'm too damn chicken to deal with me.

So what do I do about it?

Haha. Sounds so easy to say deal with it.

I feel like an archeologist who has seen in a sonogram that a skeleton of the missing link is buried under the earth.

It's been buried for so long. Things have been built on top. Years of dirt have been dumped on top of it.

You can't just pull the skeleton out. U gotta prepare, plan. Get everything clear in your head and then start digging. Through all the years of dirt and rubble. All the other ruins that are on top of the thing I am trying to get at.

So what I'm trying to say is that. Edaw has made me realise I need to start digging. To find that missing link.

Anyone able to lend me a spade?