Managing Family Tensions In Recovery

This morning tensions ran high at home…
Communication between myself and my parents were not at their best and it resulted in high emotion and an atmosphere in the house you could cut a knife through!

This left me feeling very emotional..
I knew I was causing additional stress on my parents and felt a burden.

I knew that my family were frustrated with me at times and I could understand why… I would be frustrated living with me too (oh wait.. I am frustrated with me too!).

With all this high emotion and tension it was very easy this morning to slip back into restrictive urges.
The inner distress left me wanting to restrict to numb it all & blank it out.

Despite these urges, I pushed through with mechanical eating as best I could.  I realised that this was not the time to let the eating disorder have any sort of victory.

The eating disorder was the cause of these tensions… not me, not my family members who are bewildered and frustrated on the sidelines.

I could restrict but what would that solve?

Restricting won’t help me get better and get ahead to the life I want, far away from the anxiety & irritability that’s caused these family tensions….

Restricting won’t help me feel less of a burden.

Restricting won’t help my family who want me well and to be less of a burden in future!!

Letting the eating disorder win today would just mean that these rows and emotions will continue much longer.

So despite the inner turmoil & distress I forced down the food regardless…
and gave myself extra energy to face talking out the issues that caused these tensions in the first instance.

The eating disorder will grab onto any reason to make us respond to its enticements… but, even in difficult times, we have to work to keep resisting it as staying sick will only prolong our misery & the misery of those who care about us.