Hello All, I pray you are all nourishing your bodies and giving yourselves the love that you are all so deserving of.

I did it again — I stalked the old pictures and videos of myself from a few years ago and dove down the hole that I so desperately try to stay away from.

It’s funny because I remember how I felt about my body in every video or picture I took. I remember the pain and the self accomplishment when I felt small. I remember the embarrassment and the crying in the mirror. I remember hating and liking my body in different angles. I remember wanting my ribs to show and the need for my pants to be three sizes too big. I remember all of it… yet never feeling small enough in those moments at all.

I hate how I did that to myself and I hate how I miss that version of me even more.

I think it is sad that the world can take such an innocent girl and make her hate her body. Make her blame herself for the way her body looks.

I think it is sad that I fell victim to blaming myself for my body. Apologizing to everyone except myself for how I treated me. Apologizing to others for the way my body looked. Apologizing to others because my body was not the way they wanted it to look.

I feel sad. Sad because I was so sick, sad because I don’t look like her anymore. Sad that it all contradicts itself.

I am strong enough now to let these thoughts just be thoughts and not actions. And although that is so peaceful, it also makes me feel weak. Weak because anorexia will always be apart of me, and no matter what I still hear that voice telling me I can change it all if I want to.

An addict is always an addict no matter how long they've been sober -- and in so many ways I am an addict friends. I didn't fill the void with drugs or alcohol, but I did with restriction. Anorexia was all I knew for so many years and I think people underestimate how hard it is to say goodbye to her. She was my friend and I am a people pleaser.

I think that is apart of it all. Recovery is filled with tests and challenges and urges and so many things that make me often wish I could shrink back. — but recovery is also filled with love and laughter and living a life full of energy. Recovery is the half glass full and that is why I continue everyday.

I make the choice to practice recovery everyday, the choice to "stay sober" and you can too. It doesn’t mean you won’t have trials and tribulations, but it will mean you can live life where the grass is greener — even on my rainy days.

I am rooting for you all. Hell I am rooting for me!

Love Always,

Rach