I’m a go big or go home kind of person. You would think that this is a strength, and I think that it has been at times throughout my life, but I also think that it has been the driving force behind my self destruction the past few years. You see, I don’t do anything just a little. I obsess and obsess about every little thing until I do them “perfectly,” except, as we all well know, perfect is not a thing. So there I stand, doing said thing over and over and over again, striving for the perfection that will never come, hence: obsession. Nothing I do is ever good enough in my eyes, no matter what people say. Although I’m usually pretty good at being patient and understanding and compassionate with others, I’m absolutely brutal with myself and the expectations that I put upon myself to be perfect are often unbearable.
This past year has been a rollercoaster ride. There have been really high highs, and really low lows, and right now I feel like I’m trying to get to a point where I have some stability. I’m slowly learning that I don’t have to be in that high place all the time, because a low usually follows and it continues a pattern that does me no good. Instead, I’ve been trying to focus on keeping myself in that place of common ground, not super high but not super low, just right in the middle. Moderation as they would call it. As you can gather from above, being moderate is not my strength. It never has been.
I take this same attitude of ‘go big or go home’ when I reflect on my own progress. Even if I have made progress, it’s never good enough for my perfectionist brain. In fact, I’m so hard on myself that often, I can’t even see the progress that I’m making at all. Others may point it out, my treatment team brings me evidence of this growth each time I meet with them, and usually I stubbornly disagree with every piece of evidence they bring to the table. I meet every compliment or piece of positive feedback with a “Yeah, but…” Every. Single. Time. Although I’m working my butt off, I find myself unable to grasp or accept the small steps forward that I’m taking.
I think that this is the biggest issue in my recovery. With my ‘go big or go home’ attitude, that small steps just “aren’t good enough.” In my head, I feel as though I have to be making these giant leaps and bounds forward, where that is just not how the recovery process works.
As I’ve been reflecting on this struggle I’m having within myself, I’ve found myself thinking about some of the conversations that I had with my dietitian while in treatment. First off, I fought this lady pretty hard at first. I didn’t believe anything she said, doubted her intentions, and generally distrusted her for my first bit of time at the Ranch. Looking back, I know that being leery of your dietitian is a pretty normal thing when you’re in treatment for an eating disorder, but still. This woman had to work her butt off to prove to me that she was to be trusted, but also to prove to me that she actually cared about me and was truly in my corner. I’m a tough nut to crack, and even tougher to get through to, especially when I'm in my stubborn, belligerent mindset that I consistently found myself in for much of my first time at the Ranch.
Anyway, she worked really, really hard. I always joke that it’s an art to get through to me, to figure out how to approach me and figure out just the right things to say to me that will make me actually listen. I’m so dang stubborn, and it takes a true “artist” to navigate the distrust, skepticism, and pessimism that make up the wall that I’ve built around my true self and my authentic feelings. But, somehow, she did it. When she finally started to figure me out, she would bring me evidence of my progress because she knew that was the only way I would even consider it as true. She started using a metaphor with me, and this metaphor has stuck with me ever since the first time she used it.
She compared my progress to walking in the dark with a flashlight. When you are walking down a dark path with just the light of a flashlight, the only thing that you can see is what is right in front of you. If you look backwards, you can’t see much. If you try to look too far forwards, you can’t see much either. But what you can see clearly, is what is right in front of you. You start to realize that your flashlight will illuminate what you need in each moment as you work your way down the path.
In my perfectionist, obsessive/compulsive attitude, I get caught up in wanting to see everything behind me and planning ahead for what’s to come instead of worrying about what's right in front of me. When I’m focusing too much on what is behind and what is too far forward, I’m more likely to trip over something directly in my path. I will also most likely get frustrated because I can’t see what’s ahead so I can plan. Throughout the many days we spent together, she reminded me (a lot of times) that I don’t need to see that far ahead of me, that I just needed to take some small steps in the right direction with the light of my flashlight. In the moment, this analogy frustrated me. I wanted to plan, I needed to plan. I obviously wasn’t making any progress if I couldn’t feel it or see it. However, as time went on, I realized that I had traveled quite a ways up the path with just the light of my flashlight, nothing else. And guess what? Even though I couldn’t see what was far up ahead, I took things as they came and all those little steps combined to make up some pretty serious distance. The light of my flashlight, as tiny as it was, was just enough to illuminate what i needed to keep moving forward.
To be clear, I still hate having to move through my recovery by the light of that tiny flashlight. I still get frustrated when I can’t see what's far in front of me and when I can’t plan ahead as far as I would like. Sometimes I still feel like if I can’t see it all at once, that I’m not getting anywhere at all.
However, when I really think about it and reflect, I realize that her advice was profoundly wise and very accurate. I continue to make my way down this path of recovery with all its twists and turns and obstacles. When I try and use my flashlight to see too far ahead, or use it to look backwards over where I’ve gone, I stumble over what’s right in front of me and fall on my face. Admittedly, I still do this often and have the bumps and bruises to prove it. Luckily though, I’m slowly starting to learn. I’m doing better at using my light to illuminate the steps right in front of me and trusting that what’s ahead will be there in it’s own time. Most of all, I’m realizing more and more that I’m capable of dealing with the obstacles as they show up in my flashlight’s beam.
Will I ever be able to live more in that moderate place instead of those places of extreme highs and lows? I hope so. But for now, I’m going to try and embrace the distance that I have traveled this past year. I’m going to continue to trust my flashlight and take each step as it comes, whether it’s high or low, and hold onto that hope that there’s something good at the end of this twisting, turning path that I’m walking. I may not be able to see the whole path now, but I have faith that my light will take me where I need to go.
Beautiful