Just in case my randomness has been hard to keep up with, let me give a quick summary, mainly for the purpose of catching up to what’s currently happening on this journey.

I began seeing ML in April of 2019 and we worked together until July of 2020. During this time, she created goals for me each week and we addressed many aspects of the eating disorder diagnosis. Some of the goals were to do yoga because it is more therapeutic and I couldn’t exactly “punish” myself with it, to practice intuitive eating to try to get my body to learn hunger cues and to reset my thinking on all the good and bad foods, food rules, diet failures and everything else that flitted around in my brain for so many years.

There were many ways that the intuitive eating didn’t really connect with me because my intuition was to binge eat, or starve myself, followed by binge eating. I understood the concept but also could never fully get on track with this – and not for lack of effort because, remember, I am have the perfectionist mentality.

In July of 2020, I had a cancer scare. A BIG scare. As a matter of fact, its the scariest thing I’ve dealt with that had to directly do with me. I had written my obituary and made arrangements of who would get custody of my dogs (not a bit of drama within me.) During this time, I focused all of my energy on this ordeal and all that went along with it – dr. visits, tests, scans, more tests, surgery, and all the 2020 struggles of getting all of these things done. I quit seeing ML during this time, and I realized that we had reached the peak of what we could do together. So much good came out of it. So much awareness, light shined into the dark pit in my soul, and an understanding that I wasn’t a failure as ED the Enemy had me believe for so long.

A few months into working with ML, she gave me an assignment to write a letter to myself. I don’t really remember the specific goals of the letter but what I know is that this letter very quickly shifted to a letter from God and my realization that this was a spiritual battle. I had initially intended to share most of it, but I just can’t do that. What I will share is how low of a point I was and some specific lines that have come full circle and overwhelm me with the goodnesses of God.

5/2/19

“I see that you feel like that storm raging outside. Anxiety is trying to attack you. You are in the beginning stages of self-hatred. No. the truth is, you’ve hated yourself all week.”

“. . . the more you feel the need to apologize to everyone who you feel you didn’t live up to their standards.”

“I can see that you feel completely unloved, unworthy, misunderstood. I know that you think you have disappointed everyone and ruined everything.”

“I want to tell you some things, Melissa. I want you to listen hard to them and begin to believe them.”

“First of all, and most important, the person who is telling you all the things about yourself is NOT ME **Truth** The person telling you these things is the enemy. He is ED. He is the liar. He is the destroyer. He is the one who sees your every weakness and is trying to jump in and bring you down. . . . . He’s won control of your heart, your mind, your self-esteem, your self-worth. Your total value as a human. He has made you believe after all of these years of battle, that you are totally unworthy.”

“He hasn’t worked alone in this! He has brought along people to work with him. You have loved some of these people. Truly, with your whole heart loved them.”

“Scars have been left. Those scars have changed you. You feel more unloved, insecure, unworthy, than you ever have in your life.”

“But, here is the thing! You aren’t going to give in to that. You are going to begin to work toward something new! You aren’t going to get there over night, Melissa. After all these years, there is going to be a struggle to get back what has been lost. It’s not going to be easy. There will be times where this seems impossible and where you can’t see that anything can ever be different. Guess what? It CAN and WILL be different. You are worthy of this. You are worthy of my love.”

Hang with me here because what happens in October of 2020 – 18 months after I wrote this letter to myself, answers so many things in that letter.

After the cancer scare, I told my son, Blake, I wanted to make some real changes. His company purchased the old Tyler Paper building and along with it came a gym. They hired a trainer to come train employees in the mornings and Blake and I had talked numerous times about me coming along. I couldn’t get my head around it and was also still trying to practice the idea of doing more yoga type stuff so that I didn’t fall into the exercise-as-punishment mentality.

For some reason – okay let’s call it what it is – God pulled me out of bed on Friday, October 23, 2020 and I got up and just showed up to the gym at 6:30 a.m. I told no-one I was coming. There was no plan. When I got there Blake and the trainer, Berry looked out the window and I saw Blake say “oh, it’s my mom.”

In my mind, there was no commitment here. This was just a try-out. My experiences with trainers in the past just weren’t that great. I never felt connected, or heard, or . . . anything really. Just like another number on the roster of people seen in a day.

We did our workout. I was so anxious and fearful the entire time. Every glimpse in the mirror was just another chance for ED the enemy to berate and torment me and he did a great job at it. After strength stuff, Berry had me get on the elliptical. I did about 5 minutes and couldn’t do more – between no exercise for so long and so much anxiety, I just couldn’t do more.

I came home that day, feeling like garbage. ED kept telling me how Berry would be going to tell all of his trainer friends what a loser he trained that morning. On top of that, I kept feeling like I was going to be sick and thought that was just because I had worked out for the first time in so long. As it turns out, I had a raging stomach virus.

I missed Monday’s workout due to the virus and when I texted Berry to tell him, ED was working hard some more. “You’re just verifying to him what a loser you are, Melissa. He’s going to send you back the most aggravated text, just wait” BUT. Berry responded with so much kindness and concern. One point for maybe being able to work with him.

The second week, my son was out of town and not at workout, which led me to some mental struggles about going alone. I felt insecure and ED was taunting me relentlessly, but I went anyway. As it turned out, this opened the door for talking to Berry just a little about my journey, where I had been, a tiny glimpse into my struggles. It was just a little, and very hard for me to open up, plus not thinking that he was really interested in this mess.

Guess what? He listened, heard, and responded. I realized quickly he was an intelligent and kind person that didn’t push me beyond my abilities – just the opposite actually. I felt no judgement, or irritation . And here’s a big one. He wasn’t forcing ANYTHING on me. I think he figured out from the start I would run from anything that started with “you have to . . .” – that I wasn’t the kind of girl who would respond to that. I could write a thousand reasons why, over the last two months, the person that God brought into my life to walk beside on this journey has become a friend, an encourager, a cheerleader, a listening ear, and on and on. I’ve expressed fears and frustrations and past failures, and have been met only with the kindest and most carefully chosen words – many of which are written down so that I can reference them when the battle overwhelms me. Bigger than ALL that, he hasn’t given up on me, he has only expressed wanting the best for me and to see me succeed.

See that letter up there, where that girl wrote out of her heart’s pain that she had no idea how things could ever be better. See what He did? He put the EXACT person in my life that He knew I needed, when I needed him and for so many purposes. You just don’t get that every day and every day I’m so very grateful.

Today, I went to the elliptical with the goal of 45 minutes. I did 50. The same person that only 2 months ago struggled through 5 minutes did 10X more. “So Proud,” said my encourager. No Berry, I’M the proud one, proud to have the privilege of knowing you and you being part of this journey. I realized, as I was stepping those minutes away – that it’s incredible how the body responds when treated well. Up and to the right is how I would describe the exercise component of this journey.

Nutrition wise, It’s been about 8 weeks since a binge, and the majority of that time, with that gentle and wise guidance, I have worked on my nutrition in the way that I was already feeling led to before we met.

Always feeling the need to be “real,” I will be transparent in the current struggles. For one, clearing up my past mentality on starvation is proving a challenge on some days. I like instant gratification and what the sick side of my mind knows is that under eating will provide me with the weight loss I so desire. There have been a few days where this was a real struggle. I notice this runs parallel to the emotional component.

While the exercise feels up and to the right in a steady, straight line, the emotional side feels like the trickiest of roller coasters. Some days are great, others are a beat down. It’s exhausting, right now, full of more emotional energy expenditure than I may even realize. (How many calories does crying burn, Berry?) However, I know these emotional ups and downs are providing healing. I actually looked in the mirror two times this week and instead of feeling disgust, I said “we are going to do this girl.” I can say with 100% honesty that I have NEVER said that to myself.

I MEAN. God’s goodness in orchestrating this connection, just who I needed, when I needed him overwhelms me so so much, and – there’s more. Next time, I will be introducing my other cheerleader and that fun Carolton Landing, OK trip that created such a sweet bond.

As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another. Proverbs 27:17