Accepting Myself

I must find myself… so many distractions.  God give me the courage!

There is so much hate talk in my head that I just cry out to God for help and he does.  Then I just write like I am now.  Something has to give.  I have had some great breaking points but now unless I find the self I have left behind I will always be lost.

Feeling this pain the last couple of days actually encourages me.  I am suffering well to recovery.

Temet Nosce – Know they self.

I sometimes feel really weird for doing this but I just look in the mirror and say I love you over and over again. Or I just smile.  That helps.  The prison of this self hatred can go on no more.   I am becoming a person of service.  Reaching out, and that is helping.   I think it is part of the journey to getting well.

It has been 38 days now since I was last ‘in the Food.’

This is great but I’m not really counting – though I am.  I truly believe this is only the beginning to greater things.  And I honestly only want to help others get well.  To get out of myself.  The voices of hate make me want to just give up sometimes but I refuse to let them rule me anymore.  I am righting my wrongs with all my relationships and that is clearing me up.  Although, I have been noticing all these deficiencies on my body as of late and it is bringing back the obsessing.  I must contstantly turn it back over to God… Turn.  Thy will not mine be done.

I need God so bad… So bad.  Nothing but love and acceptance can save me.

Temet Nosce

My “I Need God” Prayer

God, I know you are the only thing that can fulfill me.  No amount of food, or amount of length without food will make me feel better.  Only having your peace that passes all understanding can fulfill me.

When I have a bad day I know it isn’t you but it is simply a harder than usual day.  A day that I must take just for today.  Today I feel like Hell but any day outside of the obsession and eating disorder is heaven.  The trick is keeping centered in you so that I do not relapse.  Please guide me, give me wisdom to stay connected – to feel the pain and lean on you.  To do this not just for myself but for the betterment of others that I can help.  Thus keeping me RECOVERED.

Continue making the man that I was made to be.

I have kept a ritual each morning to stay one with you.  Yet I have drifted lately with fear and have let it creep back in.  I Must turn this over to you.  Thy will, not mine be done.  Take away my fear and teach me what you would have me BE!

Turn

Turn

Turn of the will (my way)

Happiness is not always an option but living well and contentment is and I pray for this.  I am so thankful for being recovered as I have been thus far, not cured, but recovered.   I know I need to help others recover as I have so I don’t relapse so that is what I ask for.  Please send willing people my way that I can point to you.

If you struggle with an eating disorder please don’t hesitate to contact me.  As talking to you about my Experience, Strength and Hope will keep me recovered. I need you to stay recovered.  Possibly after finding identification with my story I can show you the way out as well.

God is love and love has set me free.

Colt Gordon

619.356.3571

Serve to Overcome

To serve, not to be served.

“People who do not shrink from self crucifixion can never fail to accomplish the object upon which their hearts are set.”

— James Allen

Since there is so much pain and resistance to get to my destiny I must have a big enough WHY.   A why that motivates me to keep pushing me forward through the pain.  Pain that is useful to get better.

As for me, my WHY is to help my family financially, spiritually, mentally, and physically to get better — to fully just be there for them. Not to enable them by any means but to fully have the opportunity to support them.  If my why was fully about me I believe I would quit.  So, it’s about others and being able to give back.  I know this will propel me forward by evidence of others who have made their mark on our world’s history; by not serving themselves but others.  Do unto others…

Chocolate Flavored Recovery

Willy Wonka’s chocolate river

Today for lunch and dinner I essentially ate nothing but Hershey’s milk chocolate.  And this is a good thing… Well I guess it is.  I’m surprisingly totally fine with it.  The only problem though is understanding if I’m eating it cause I really want it or if I’m using it emotionally.

You see, I know that moralizing food has never worked for me.  So somehow and in some way I must try to be okay with wanting certain foods.  The logic here is that if I let myself have what I desire/crave I won’t need to binge and purge, I guess…

This is very strange for me to do.  I am anxious that I am destroying my body by letting myself have the yummy stuff. Yet, diets and restricting has done more damage than eating chocolate for meals could ever do.  And I don’t mean just physically and nutritionally; I mean stress and anxiety wise.

See, bingeing and purging has been such a tax to my body these past years.  I have had some nasty consequences ranging from varicose veins to enlarged glands to a broken ankle.  Yet the anxiety and the prison of wanting a perfect body has stressed and depressed myself to near suicide.

After all, my identity is rooted in how good I look.  So if I am sporting a six pack, clear skin, and a clean smile I am on cloud 9.  The other side of that is if I’m bloated, have acne, have a bulimic neck, and/or just binged I am absolutely miserable!

This simply is because I am sadly destroying my pathetic sense of identity – my body.  Yet I can’t stop, otherwise I would, because my subconscious has found relief in using the food to cope – addiction.

The crazy part was that my subconscious learned to numb out with food yet couldn’t have chosen a worse thing to cope with as my identity (my body) is sabotaged when I engage in the addiction.  Therefore, I want to die – I can’t stop!

Well, I know there is still hope, and hope has kept me alive.  I know I can come back to life, the life I vaguely remember before this melancholy state.  I know I have a life to live and I really want to live it.  I have so much going for me.

I have two choices:

1) control

or

2) recover

I choose 2: So I eat the chocolate for lunch… I’ll trust my body. It doesn’t make sense right now.  In fact, I sound absolutely mad!  Although, my body works.  It knows what it wants and it can pull out what it needs from what I put in it.  I will listen to my body; I will eat what I want and when I want it.  If it desires nothing but candy, ice cream, or even to drink from Willy Wonka’s chocolate river then so be it — if it means recovery.  The trick is just not falling in  😉 (eating emotionally)

“There is no such thing as good or bad foods.”

— Nina V.

Mental Trap Trick for Eating Disorders

The eating disorder thoughts are not true! Do not give into them.

I am powerful. I am free. I am a man of action. I am a man of truth. I will not bow to this disease anymore. I choose to think the contrary of what the disease whispers in my ear.  I choose freedom.

Sticky Note to Recovery!

In my house, in about all the places I look MOST I put these up to remind myself of the recovery I will have which is possible.
This way there is no way I can forget  😉

Mindshift

Calling Myself Out

Stepping up and Out

“The call to action is when you call yourself out for what you are not doing. Are you doing your best, giving it your all? For 14 years of my life I was an addict and a victim, for 9 years a sober angry dry drunk. I couldn’t stand the fact that if I didn’t change I would die broke, angry, resentful and with regrets. I started giving it “My All”, no more lying, cheating, procrastinating DONE! Challenge yourself, dedicate your time to production, contribution to your family your teammates and yourself. You deserve success but you are not entitled to it. Call yourself out, challenge yourself, get off the dime and deliver. The courage is within you, this is your wake up call. CHALLENGE YOURSELF.”

— Jeffery Combs

I quote Jeffery and I write this now because I have been unwilling to get out of the cave and see the light.  Its like I want to stay stuck.  A strange phenomenon.  I don’t want to stay stuck but I continue to contribute to being stuck by not doing anything toward my recovery.  There are so many distractions but there are also so many opportunities to get well.  Opportunities like hanging out with an old friend, going out in public, playing basketball, go hike.  Yet I find myself isolating myself watching football doing nothing as I planned.

So it comes down to this:  Do I want to be a victim or a victor?  And if I’m honest a part of me wants to stay stuck… its gross but kind of true.  I have become addicted to my melancholy!  I must face the light.   I call myself out from being a victim to this.

True I didn’t ask for this disease.  But I also have a choice to do the things necessary so the disease doesn’t have me!   Right now, I will turn off the football game.  I will read my vision.  I will affirm my new life of recovery. I will meditate. I will return that call of that friend who called me which I ignored because I wanted to isolate.  I am worthy and sometimes I must just act myself into right thinking.  I must do the opposite of what I feel like doing.  I must not isolate no matter how uncomfortable it is.  I will see the light, I will climb out.

Thank you everyone who has supported me thus far.  I am a victor!  I will recover.

Hello World!

Welcome to my new blog “eatingdisorderfreedom” I am here to share my journey as I recover fully from multiple eating disorders. I am currently recovering after 6 years of suffering from various eating disorders, depression, and suicidal tendencies.  That’s just over 2000 days! I’ve tried many different things to get help like religions, hypnosis, world trips, gurus, diets, fasts, books, seminars, the list goes on… Still I refuse to give up and will live this life to the full. This time around I am willing to do what it takes rather than find the magic pill or quick fix.

I hope to inspire and support as I recover as well as be inspired and supported by others on the way.  The above picture was taken a few months back when I received about 3 months of relief but not full recovery.  I looked quite healthy here yet I relapsed because I didn’t build a foundation of recovery which would build permanent relief.  I forgot because I never changed my mind set.  I am now through various resources changing my mindset.  If you need immediate help I would suggest Nina V’s website: helpforeatingdisorder.com.  I am currently seeking recovery help from her.  Thank you.

“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”
— Theodore Roosevelt