Still I Rise.

Bethany. 31. Writer. Recovering.

[weltenwellen]

Joy Sullivan, from “These Days People Are Really Selling Me On California”, Instructions for Traveling West

[weltenwellen]

Tracy K. Smith, from “Don’t You Wonder, Sometimes?”, Life on Mars

[dsxsbx]

[allloversbetray]

From How to Write an Autobiographical Novel: Essays by Alexander Chee

[honeysuckleporridge]

Kitties 💖

[memeuplift]

[ontheidiotbox]

[teabooksandsweets]

winter art by Vanessa Bowman

[fixeche]

Backgarden of the sleeping souls II. Edinburgh, Scotland.

[mournfulroses]

Jennifer S. Cheng, from her book titled "Moon: Letters, Maps and Poems," originally publ. in 2018

[pagewoman]

The Bridge of Sighs, St John’s College, Cambridge, England

by El

[inkpressedpetals]

[bethanyetc]

How’s recovery going

Eating disorder stuff is going really well. My ed thoughts have been significantly quieter. What is so much more of a struggle is my gastroparesis. I had to come off of my medication that was specifically helping with it because of the side effects. Since then I’ve barely been able to stomach anything. Dinners at IOP are torture because they’re so large. I am always nauseous, always in severe pain, burping all day, unbelievably bloated. It’s so upsetting.

I did finally see my GI doctor and he prescribed me something new but the pharmacy had to special order it, and it still hasn’t arrived.

I’ve been awake all night because of how I feel physically. I don’t want to restrict. But eating is so physically hard right now.

It’s so strange how this feels so different than being deep in the eating disorder and fearing calories and weight gain. I’m doing everything I can to get nutrition in. I’m pretty much keeping Ensure in business. But this is absolute torture.

To not be able to feed myself because I emotionally can’t is one thing. To not be able to feed myself because I physically can’t is another beast entirely.

[bethanyetc]

how are you feeling?

My pain has been on and off (by on, I mean a 10, and off, I mean a baseline 6). I vacillate between being used to it and being intensely frustrated by it.

[mournfulroses]

Nikita Gill, from Fierce Fairytales Poems & Stories to Stir Your Soul; "Gretel After Hansel," (edited)

[jeydadeniz]

[naihve]

[stuckinapril]

You literally have to take this one wild and precious life and wrangle it into something that’s worth waking up every day for