what can i do..

all i want to do is help. i have been through so much and experienced a lot of trial and error that i feel like i am in a spot where i could really make a difference. it's all i want; i've said this. people aren't learning the proper coping skills early enough, so too many of them are finding their own paths: starving, purging, cutting, burning, smoking, drinking..

when it comes to eating disorders, i have received so much guidance and counseling that i have a starting point. i've seen the foundations, i've seen the paths, i know how to talk to others suffering and i'm a few years of medical school short of being an ED-specialized licsw. (ok, slight exaggeration, but i've been given good feedback on the way i help others when it comes to that.) i'm not saying i know everything about ED recovery, but i know where the starting point is.

the other day, my friend told me she had a fellow employee that admitted to cutting herself and i thought, "oh, been there, how about..... well, what if you....." and i realized i don't know what the hell to do. i was never helped. i was never guided. i was never in treatment for my SI behaviors. yes, self-destruction all comes back to the same points: outlets, control, and coping mechanisms. but, for some reason, i draw a blank. i'm being pretty hard on myself for it, which, we all know is in my nature.

the weird thing for me is that, as possessive as i was about my AN, i was aware there were other people around me hurting themselves in the same way. there's a whole community of eating disorder support. it's not all positive, but there's a community. when it came to SI, it was about being alone and being the only one. i didn't want to share it, i didn't want to talk to anyone that "knew what it was like"; it was mine. how do you get into that? it took me four years and being crazy in love to finally let someone break in and i just.. quit. i quit cold, and i quit for the wrong reasons. i was lucky that i went through a lot of unbelievable growth since then, but i was never given replacement tools until i went into treatment for AN.

i didn't want any. you like it. it grows on you. it grows into you. how do you break that wall??

should i accept that maybe i can't help everyone that takes a path that looks like the ones i took? because i can't. we don't learn life lessons to keep them to ourselves; that doesn't make sense. i should have been a psych major.

to be continued..