I have been talking with my therapist about some unresolved grief and loss issues. I even wrote a closure letter to begin exploring these feelings in more detail. I have been overexercising for the past three days. The running is making me so damn sore. I'm so frustrated with all of these emotions and my physical issues from the running. I want to do this, but I don't want to do this. I hate these feelings and the constant crying. This eating disorder sucks. How in the hell did my life get so out of control.

Sorry for the ranting, but I just feel really frustrated and overwhelmed.

If you really, really want it, you CAN stop it. The overexercising sucks, I've been there, done that, and messed up my knees tremendously because of ignoring pain and running through it. You can stop. It feels weird and wrong at first, and you're likely to have anxiety, but I just kept telling myself I was doing what was best for my body and my body needed a rest and needed me to take care of it and nourish it.

Ask yourself this: Do you want to spend the rest of your life overexercising and restricting? I know I didn't. In fact, the thought of having to live that way until I did die just filled me with despair. I felt I'd rather be dead than to have to keep living a life focused around the ED. If you feel this way, there is hope.

You have to start with actions. It's hard yes, but you have to begin by not giving in to the ED compulsions to overexercise. At the very least, start turning runs into walks then start decreasing the time spent exercising. Now, I take days off from exercising. I exercise about 4-5 days a week, sometimes more, sometimes less, I just listen to my body and I exercise at much lower intensities than before. If I'm tired or sore, I take a break. If I'm sick, I take a break. And guess what? My weight hardly changes.

Do realize you don't get well by virtue alone. Attending sessions with therapists, psychiatrists, dieticians is all well and good, but you won't recover from the ED habits if outside of those sessions, you do everything to thwart recovery and hang on to the ED.

I know it is scary. For so long, my identity was so wrapped up in the ED that I was scared to let it go. But is it worth it for people to just say, "Oh, she was skinny."? I wanted to be a good wife, sister, friend, aunt, daughter. Really, I want people to remember me for my positive qualities and not just that I had an ED and was skinny and obsessed with food & calories.

I suggest you find the thread titled "Some motivation--benefits of recovery" and read it, maybe even print it out because trust me, there is a way out of this misery, and it is worth it.

I'm so frustrated with all of these emotions and my physical issues from the running. I hate these feelings and the constant crying.

I've been in therapy for just over a year, and sometimes feel I'm getting worse! In therapy you learn to face difficult issues and have to experience the emotions you've been ignoring. It is hard, and sometimes these repressed issues cause me to slip into self-destructive behavior - such as uncontrollable crying spells, self-injury, and unhealthy eating/exercising. It's like therapy "awakes the beast within". Fortunatley, I am aware that in the larger scope of things I am healing by going through this. Just keep this in mind when you go down the therapy road. It's a tough road to travel but it leads to a better place.

It doesn't always have to get worse before it gets better. It may not feel like it, but in some of this in your ED actions, you really DO have a choice.

While crying constantly is painful, sometimes you need an outlet for the grief. It's OK to cry; it's natural and human.

What I do suggest you focus on with your therapist is developing non-ED related strategies for coping with these emotions. Instead of overexercising, start journalling or writing or take up photography. Feel the compulsion to run, force yourself to take a warm soak in the tub with a good book (I suggest steering away from women's magazines during recovery as you will be hard pressed to find 1 magazine without at least one story on cooking, dieting, exercising, losing weight and that can be triggering). During my recovery, I made a goal to read all the mystery novels by Agatha Christie (she wrote a lot of books!) and I did it! Take up a new hobby--latchhooking is very simple, or knitting, learn how to make clay beads or candles or soap and most importantly, turn to this new hobby instead of ED behaviors to help you cope. No, it isn't easy, but over time, you will find yourself less and less obsessed with having to exercise all the time especially when your body is in actual physical pain, it is telling you it needs a break!