Book Of The Week: Warrior Of The Light By Paulo Coelho

In case no one has told you this today:

-I love you

-You are worth it

-You are beautiful/handsome/cute

-You are an amazing person

-You deserve the world

-Your life is worth so much

-You are worth more than starving/binging/purging

-You are worth more than a piece of metal

-You are worth more than the names people call you

-You may hate your life right now but always remember you have at least one good moment a day

i’m truly sorry that after all these years you never learned how to love yourself in such a way so as to appreciate the absolute beauty and hard-earned success and growth of others without taking it as a personal attack upon yourself

d.c. (via a-pen-and-some-words)

Reasons to Recover from Your Eating Disorder

You won’t have to go through life worrying about every single calorie and every single meal. 

You can enjoy dinner with your family without panicking about it. 

You can live life without it revolving around food. 

You won’t have to lie to the people you care about anymore.

You can actually have fun on your birthday.

Fighting with people you care about over whether or not you’ve eaten is boring and painful. 

Because there is more to life than food. 

Because losing friends is not fun. 

You can enjoy social occasions without worrying about food.

You won’t feel so constantly exhausted and drained all the time.

Thinking and dreaming about and being consumed by food is no way to live.

Feeling dizzy and cold and tired keeps you from living a happy, fulfilling life.

Recovery will give you the chance to LIVE and to be alive, rather than just existing.

Because you deserve to have happy thoughts in your head, instead of numbers. 

Your recovery can inspire and aid the recovery of others. Instead of passing on disordered behavior, you can pass on health and support and encouragement. 

Your skin will improve, as will your mental clarity. Eating right (and enough) can greatly help symptoms of depression and anxiety.

Because you don’t deserve to cry yourself to sleep anymore.

You deserve to be able to genuinely smile again. 

You deserve to be able to go outside and enjoy your day without worrying about what you’re wearing and whether or not you look okay. 

You won’t have to waste money on food to binge on anymore.

Your feet and legs will stop falling asleep and going numb when you sit down.

Your hair will stop falling out.

Your skin will finally be able to heal itself. You deserve to be glowing. 

It’s nice to not feel like death anymore. 

It’s nice to not smell like vomit anymore. 

It’s nice to be able to go out and actually enjoy yourself again. 

Your general health will improve and you’ll be less susceptible to colds and viruses. 

You won’t have to feel guilty about breaking your promises. 

You won’t have to lie to everyone around you. 

You’ll be able to go out and dance at parties/bars/clubs without feeling weak and dizzy.

If you’re fortunate enough to still have healthy teeth, recovery will prevent them from rotting. 

You are worth so much more than just a number on a scale. 

It’s nice to not be constantly cold and nauseous all the time. 

Because crying in your room is never a good way to spend a Friday night.

You can finally live without guilt. Guilt that you ate when you didn’t think you deserved to eat. Guilt that you haven’t eaten and you’re letting loved ones down. Guilt that you binged. Guilt that you purged. Guilt that deep down you’ve forgotten how to love yourself. 

Your bones won’t be brittle and easy to break anymore. 

You’ll be able to sleep at night without hunger pains keeping you awake.

Be confident again. 

So you don’t feel like a complete & utter hypocrite when trying to help someone that is in the same position as you.

So you can enjoy “family time” & not worry about eating “bad food”

So that you don’t spit up after eating because your esophagus is so fucked up from purging. 

So you don’t miss out on life. 

Because it’s nice waking up and thinking about what art you can create, what places you can explore, what books you can read, what people you can meet, what songs you can sing, what sports you can play, instead of thinking about what you’re going to eat and not eat that day.

Watching Netflix is a lot more fun than watching “thinspiration” videos. 

It’s nice to wake up in the morning with energy, instead of waking up tired from not eating, or sick from binging. 

So that you can get up in the morning and see clearly, instead of seeing spots or having black vision as you try to sit up. 

You deserve to love yourself again. 

You deserve to accept love from those around you again. 

You deserve to be able to go shopping without having panic attacks and breakdowns in the changing room. 

You can eat your favorite foods without guilt and anxiety. 

You’ll have enough energy to do the things you enjoy. 

You can be active, and run or play sports for the fun of it, not for weight loss. 

You can have a life again. 

You’ll be able to sleep at night. 

Aren’t you tired of feeling worthless and guilty?

You’ll be able to go out without thinking that everyone is staring at you. 

Go into a grocery store feeling safe. 

You won’t have to be scared of going to the doctor anymore.

You won’t have to excuse yourself from work or social events to purge.

Recover so you don’t have to see the scared, heartbroken look on your mother’s face when she hears you purging. 

Recover so you can go on a date and feel happy and not worry.

Recover so that you can share your story and help others recover. 

You won’t have to waste any more money on laxatives. 

Your eating disorder won’t be feeding your anxiety and depression anymore.

ALL of us deserve a better life than ED hell. 

You’ll be able to have children someday if you want to. 

So you can make spontaneous plans to go out, and not have to check or worry if they’ll “fit in” with the eating disorder.

So you can spend time having interesting conversations with people, without your mind wandering off to do calorie counts.

You don’t have to feel guilty when people buy you food, because you won’t have to waste it anymore. 

So you can live a happy, free, fulfilled life. 

So you can feel unafraid for the first time in a long time. 

So you can have and actually sustain healthy relationships with people (family, friends, significant other) without the eating disorder causing fights and pushing them away. 

You can walk around town with a friend or go to events without worrying about passing out. 

You don’t have to lie awake at night worrying about the damage you’re doing to yourself. 

When you give your body the fuel it needs, your physical AND mental health will improve. Your self-confidence will improve. 

You can get your natural skin tone back, and not look gray and sickly pale all the time.

Your blood pressure and heart rate will go back to normal. 

You’ll be able to enjoy hot baths and showers again.  

You won’t have so much gas or bloating or stomach pains anymore. Your intestinal and digestive health will slowly heal itself. 

You can stop punishing yourself for eating. 

You can sit up for more than 10 minutes without your stomach hurting.

You won’t have to debate for an hour before eating an apple. 

Your room won’t smell like vomit and moldy food. 

So you don’t get up in the middle of the night feeling as though you need to do 300 sit-ups before you can sleep and then spend all day feeling tired, and ill.

You won’t trigger others anymore. 

So you dont end up in hospital at 3am because your bowels are bleeding due to your ED

You won’t be constantly dehydrated anymore.

When you look back on your life, you’ll have happy memories too, not just empty memories of anorexia / bulimia

You won’t have constant headaches anymore.

You won’t have to isolate yourself anymore.

Because life can, and should be, so much more.

Please feel free to add onto this list, and share your own stories and reasons for recovery. I love you guys and my inbox is always open. 

All credit to @thefrizzkid for the original (the pink)

I thought I knew you. But still, you surprise me. A soft touch, A sweet smile. They all somehow, Seem to make my life worthwhile.

(via poetbychoice)

The luminous purple sky is mirrored in the thin sheet of water across the world’s largest salt flat, Salar de Uyuni, in Bolivia.

Photograph by Xiaohua Zhao

(TheGuardian)

please don't ever think that no one cares about you

I work in an ER and we see suicides all the time. And we get at least 3 suicidal ideations a night. We all care about you. I promise, we do. A team of complete strangers who have worked 3+ 12 hour shifts this week who are being screamed at all day and night and probably haven’t had lunch and trust me, we still love you and care about you.

We had a 16 year old patient last night who we couldn’t save. We were in that room with this patient for over an hour, we did everything we could. And let me tell you, we all cried. The EMT’s, the nurses, the doctor. We all huddled together in the doctors dictation room and cried.

I went through the rest of my shift with smudged mascara and tracks on my cheeks.

I remember the names of all the patients that have taken their lives on my shifts.

I remember squeezing the hands, smoothing the hair, kissing the foreheads, and wiping away the blood and the vomit of every patient that has left me too soon.

I can still see every face that I have zipped into a body bag.

Trust me, someone cares about you. You have never met them yet. You don’t ever think about them. They are never remembered when you talk about heroes and role models.

But someone loves you.

“Just because someone used to be an important part of your life doesn’t mean you have to continue to cling to the friendship when it begins to die. Your relationship was once something beautiful and fulfilling, and that’s a wonderful thing. But at a certain point, no amount of watering and nurturing will bring it back to full bloom. The fact that its deteriorated doesn’t mean you’re incapable of sustaining meaningful friendships. It doesn’t mean you’re not worth the time and effort it takes to maintain a connection. And it isn’t any sort of evidence that you’re a burden or a bad friend. It just means that the relationship has run its course. It means that you’ve evolved into different people or moved apart or just lost each other in the clutter and preoccupation of life’s everyday demands. But it isn’t a reflection on your value as a person and friend.It’s okay to mourn the loss of a relationship that used to have a special place in your heart. But if keeping yourself tethered to this person is causing more damage than healthy detachment and ongoing growth, it’s also okay to stop watering the friendship and let it die out. You don’t have to sacrifice your wellbeing for the sake of maintaining a relationship that doesn’t serve you anymore. You’re allowed to be picky when it comes to the people you let into your mental and physical space. You’re allowed to conserve your time and energy only for people who reciprocate. Because you deserve to feel seen and heard and cared for. You deserve relationships that make you feel fulfilled and connected. And no matter how long of a history you have with a person, you deserve to let go of any friendship that hurts you and forces you to prove your worth.”

Daniell Koepke (via internal-acceptance-movement)

“Maybe I want to keep running away.” “Fine. Then run. Keep running. Run until you think you’ve escaped all this. But the moment you stop, the moment you settle, the moment you start to fall in love again, everything you’ve done and everyone you’ve hurt? It will all catch up to you. I can promise you that.

from an unfinished story #439 (via thoughts-into-ink)