Running out of excuses

I have no excuse for why I am the way that I am.

What I keep forgetting is – I don’t need one.

Who I am is just fine.

How I am is just fine.

The only adjustments I need to make are in the areas where not who I am (which is always okay) but how I am is no longer working for me.

I need to lock. this. in.

Which is so easy to say and so not easy to do.

In fact, just for reassurance’s sake, feel free to jump in anytime and remind me that I’m not the only one out there who is challenged on a daily basis to work with rather than against my innate temperament, personal wiring, preferences, abilities, skills, and talents.

The reason I bring this is up is because I get letters each week from others of you who are going through the recovery process, and you seem to be laboring under the inaccurate assumption that there is something about me that makes it easier for me to get into recovery, and stay in recovery, than it is for you.

There isn’t.

Here is an example of what I am talking about:

Dear Shannon, I am struggling with hanging onto the healthy part when all I want to do is recover. So my question is has that really ever happened to you where you do so well and are motivated then lose it? Also do you have any ideas on how to stay motivated and determined so I don't fall into the sick role again or so I don't put the mask on? I have been doing ok for a while but feel I am sitting on a fence and could fall either way. Thanks!

And I’m reading this thinking to myself, “Uh huh – yup –  sure thing that has happened to me. I know EXACTLY how you feel. I spent YEARS hanging out on that fence. Boy is that a tough place to be. In fact, I still have scars on both sides of my body from falling either way time and time again. The only – and I mean ONLY – thing that works is perseverance. Patience. Giving yourself some time, and some grace. Or at least that is the only thing that has ever worked for me.”

See what I mean?

On that note, if I have one pet peeve (outside of the “War on Obesity” – visit my Huffington Post blog for more on that) it is the growing trend of what I call “recovery celebrities”.

These are peeps who get famous simply for getting better.

Whether or not they were famous before, once they recover they get rewarded with fame for doing what so many do every day with little or no fanfare. Post-recovery, some even become doctors or talk show hosts and go into the business of helping to create more recovery celebrities, fostering the notion that somehow, through their access to money or publicity or celebrity or some other indefinable “specialness”, they are better equipped to get better and stay that way than the rest of us.

A related analogy would be the people who write in to magazines like Shape or Self, complaining that they would be able to get in shape too if they had the money to hire all those expensive chefs and personal trainers the celebrities can afford.

Not true. So not true.

There is nothing special about recovery celebrities.

There is nothing they have that you or I need and don’t have to save our own lives.

There is nothing I have that you don’t have - no smarts, no support, no DNA wiring – that enables me to recover better or faster or stay that way longer than you can.

When I say this, and as you may be preparing to disagree, I realize there is something you should know about me.

Outside of my mentor, who came along about eight years into my battle with anorexia and bulimia, I had nothing when I was recovering. No money or insurance for professional care. No friends who understood my struggles. No media coverage to help me identify my disease as an “eating disorder”. No books to read from other survivors. In fact, I didn’t meet another survivor until I had been in recovery for a good few years!

There was nothing at all “special” about me, or my situation, save for how truly few resources I had at my disposal when I decided to recover. What I learned from that experience is that it is not what you have, but what you do with what you have, that makes the difference.

Or in other words, if I can get better, you can too.

Nor am I an “overnight recovery success”. It took me two full decades to get to the point where I was healthy enough for long enough to be both willing and able to share my story publicly, write my book, and launch MentorCONNECT, the community for which Beating Ana was written.

So what I want you to know – really lock in – is that someone like me is in no way, shape, or form different than someone like you.

This means that, just like the rest of us, there are still areas of my life that need a lot of help. For instance, I still feel insecure in my own skin – at least once per day. I still run across unwelcome triggers, although how I handle them now has changed. I still question my place in this world, my acceptability, my ability, my dreams.

And I still like to compare where I am now against where I think I should be.

But I am fast running out of excuses for why I am the way that I am, or for why the way that I am somehow precludes me from being the me I want to be or achieving the things I need to achieve.

I am the way that I am because I am ME.

You are the way that you are because you are YOU.

We are each unrepeatable, irreplaceable, utterly unique.

And there are no barriers to who we can be or what we can do, except the ones that we ourselves create.

xo
Shannon

Comments

[nicola clune]

Shannon, you truly are an amazing example to us all u rose against all adversities and im proud to be part of the mc community u created..