Well, I chose Laura to remind us that Saturday will be the D-Day for those who care about Mental Health. I have been there, ladies, too. And I might not have been the only one. Eating disorders are the mirror of a schizophrenic society which wants too much but can’t fill it all, we claim for our neurotic and absent father’s attention, we can’t fullfill the emptyness, like bulimia nervosa, binge …or the contrary, rejects anything is good for ones health, we struggle with an overprotective mother who does not want/allow us to grow, because they would loose their status and power as Mother Queen, like anorexia nervosa.
If you do not open your heart or expose and express yourself you do not let bad in but also you do not let GOOD in !!!!!! as highly sensitive person you need walls that protect you as much as you need bridges to communicate and share. we are social (human) beings. you have to settle these boundaries within yourself and others !!!
My twenties were my first call in my heroine’s journey, and yet I went to meds way. Did my mother save me? I can’t say it really. What we really needed was a family therapy once a week just to talk to each other with a therapist or a counsellor. I came out from my ED recovery a day at a time and still thinking that I was nothing without my mother looking after me. See the danger of a co-dependent relationship with your mother-dragon?
what is assertiveness? being assertive means being able to stand up for your own or other people’s rights in a calm and positive way, without being either aggressive, or passively accepting ‘wrong’.
As grown up in Italy, and not even the Southern, machism was and still is very present. And that’s fine, I was a tomboy in my teenage because I wanted to be like a man, I saw that they had more fun in life than girls thriving to be perfect.
Perfect for what? finding the Prince Charming who in fact is the copy of your father? Go away. I tried and I tried again, and I failed again.
My only way out came in my thirties, when I left a good job in the city and moved to another Country. Only to find out that french guys are still machist but in a different way? ahaha
I am eager to attend this Mental health big event and I hope that it will give us a chance to meet up and rejoin this resiliency community of recovery enthusiasts !!!
Now, Laura speaks…
My relationship with exercise was completely wrong and I would spend hours exercising every day. I hated it and some days it felt like torture but I had convinced myself that it was good for me to exercise so much and what I was doing was completely normal. My body was screaming at me to stop; it hurt like hell and I ached so much. I woke up every morning filled with dread that I was going to have to endure this punishing regime all over again. But I felt like there was no alternative. I had to do it. Either that or I wouldn’t eat.
Breaking this habit has been one of the hardest parts of my eating disorder recovery. Sitting down and resting when my brain is screaming at me to exercise has been so difficult. Gradually with the help of my therapist and a hell of a lot of distractions and coping strategies I have reduced my exercise from around 3 hours a day to half an hour a day. It’s been bloody tough but I am finally getting to the point where I actually enjoying exercise again and I look forward to it rather than dreading it.
Yesterday I tried a Jiu Jitsu class with my friend for the first time which was good fun. It was so nice to actually be able to focus on what I was doing rather than my brain worrying whether I was burning enough calories and trying to push myself to the absolute limit. Exercise is a celebration of what your body can do. Not a punishment for what you ate 🌸🦋✨
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