Wings of Recovery

How to Handle Strong Emotions (Without Losing Your Mind)

Let’s be real—emotions can hit hard. One minute you’re fine, the next you’re furious, sobbing, or feeling like you’re going to explode. It happens to all of use for no apparent reason. You’re human. Feeling big emotions is part of just being alive. You’re not too much, and you’re not alone. The trick isn’t to avoid emotions—it’s learning how to deal with them without letting them overwhelm you. The more you practice handling these incredibly strong emotions, the stronger and more grounded you’ll become. Here’s how to get a handle on those intense feelings:

Name It to Tame It – Sounds cheesy, but it works. When you’re stressed and overwhelmed, stop and ask yourself: What exactly am I feeling? Angry? Embarrassed? Jealous? Anxious? Naming your emotion makes it less scary and more manageable.

Breathe. Seriously – Your brain freaks out and does all kind of unwanted things when you’re emotional, and deep breathing calms it down. Try this: inhale for 4 seconds, hold it for 4, exhale for 6. Do that a few times and you’ll feel the difference. You can also find other breathing techniques in my blog “Just Breathe”.

Don’t Bottle It Up (But Don’t Explode Either) – Shoving your emotions down doesn’t make them go away; it just delays them for being dealt with and gives them a chance to become stronger and more overwhelming. But letting them explode all over someone else doesn’t help either. Write in a journal, talk to someone you trust, or get creative—draw, make music, move your body. You can see my blog on journaling for some suggestions on this if you haven’t thought of this earlier.

Find the Story You’re Telling Yourself – Sometimes strong emotions come from the story we’re spinning in our heads. These are called cognitive distortions. Such as

they ignored me, so they must hate me.” Stop. Ask: Is that actually true? Or am I assuming the worst? Be curious about your thoughts—not an instant judge of yourself and your thoughts.

Take a Timeout – It’s okay to walk away. Whether it’s from a heated conversation, a stressful situation, or your own overthinking brain—step back. Give yourself space to cool off and think clearly. This is another place you can use using breathing techniques to encourage and help your mind calm down.

Emotions Are Temporary – Even the strongest emotions don’t last forever. REMEMBER…emotions usually only last 90 seconds. Yes, you read correctly…90 SECONDS! However that is assuming we don’t do anything to intensify them. No ruminating, no anguishing over them, etc. I realize that can be almost impossible for us. You might feel like your world is ending, but it won’t feel that way tomorrow—or even in a few hours. Ride the wave.

Talk to Someone – You don’t have to deal with everything alone. Talking to a friend, a mentor, your support team (professional or personal) isn’t weak—it’s smart. You deserve support. I will tell you from personal experience that emotions that are shared DO tend to lose their power over us and our mind.

If you find yourself with unbelievably strong emotions and you forget these suggestions…don’t panic! As long as the emotions still exist you can begin to use any or all of these tools. Or any tools that are in your toolbox that you are able to remember. If you can’t find anything in your toolbox and none of the above ideas don’t work for you; reach out to your support team, they may have further suggestions. No beating yourself up! This only serves to add more negative emotions to your already overflowing emotions. Remember, emotions can’t really hurt you physically.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

I know and believe that those of us who suffer from an ED of any type can beat it. It is hard work and at times feels impossible; but I am sure it is a goal that is obtainable to all of you out there. KEEP YOUR CHIN UP! Take baby steps towards your recovery, put one foot in front of the other and know, with a capital K, you CAN do it. Even if you can’t see it now, the world needs you!

Don’t let a slip turn into a slide

Not one of use who suffer from an eating disorder are able to “get it” immediately. We all struggle, especially in the beginning. Remember, recovery IS NOT LINEAR. It has its ups and downs. Some days we believe ‘I got this’ and other times we are so overwhelmed and want to throw in the towel. On those days we feel like ‘I got this’ we feel on top of the world…woo-hoo, finally! The days that we are overwhelmed are the days we struggle just to keep our head above water. These are the days we tend to let our meal plan slide. These are the days that we throw up our hands and say forget this crap. Those are the days we are most likely to begin to slip. We all have those days no matter how long we have been in recovery or how far we have come in our journey. The trick here is DON’T LET THE SLIP TURN INTO A SLIDE. If we can think about it in a more positive manner, we can prevent this from happening.

If you are able, reach out to your professional team to get help with this. Part of their “job” is to help us so the slip doesn’t turn into a slide. They may have tools to suggest that you can use to help you get back your motivation and courage (yes, it takes courage to beat this disease) and desire to ‘get back on the horse’ so to speak. They can help you to figure out what you need to change with your thinking so you can stop the slip. They will help you to not beat yourself up, something we all are way too good at doing. If you are unable to see what triggered the slip, they are there to help you, guide yourself to the answer, and work through it.

Check to see what tools you may already know and can use to make this process easier. The tools may be able for help you figure out what triggered the slip. Use those tools! Take a look at your motivation and use that to give you the gentle nudge you may need to make today a more beneficial and healthier day. Journal, get busy, use self-soothing. Use Check the Facts or Pros & Cons (both DBT tools) to see if you can find other ways to make better decisions when it comes to your meal plan. Meditation can be a valuable tool; I use the mantra meditation technique. Being an anorexic, my mantra for this is “I deserve and want to eat”. You can make your own mantra based on your type of ED. This is also where I turn to my higher power. I can get extra strength from him if I ask, then sit quietly and listen.

If you journal or keep a gratitude journal go back and read your wins or look at your progress list (if you made one). This can help us to remember that bad days happen, but you are moving forward and making progress even if you aren’t able to see that for yourself. If you don’t do either of those things, just sit quietly and see if you can find some progress in your recovery, no matter how small you may feel the progress is.

Each day is a new day, a new beginning, a fresh start. Each day we get up we can reaffirm our decision to do the best we can. Yesterday is over, today is all we have. So let’s begin by not beating ourselves up over a day where we were not able to achieve our meal plan. We cannot change it; but rather might use yesterday as a history book to see what NOT to do. If you are not happy with yourself over yesterday and your actions then you have the power to change them today. By this I do not mean change what you did but to just use your radical acceptance tool and accept. No judgement, no butt kicking of yourself. It was what it was. Remember, YESTERDAY IS OVER. Make a resolution to do better today. Then do it!

FINAL THOUGHTS:

KEEP YOUR CHIN UP! Take baby steps towards your recovery, put one foot in front of the other and know, with a capital K, you CAN do it. Even if you can’t see it now, the world needs you!

A Message to ED

ED,

Notice I didn’t say ‘Dear ED’. I only use that term as a term of endearment and you, ED, are not endearing. You are so unwanted that there isn’t strong enough words in the world to tell you how unwanted you are.

Once upon a time you were my best and one and only friend. For a long time, I thought you were helping me. You came into my life quietly, offering control when everything felt out of control. You whispered lies that sounded like truths—that being thinner meant being better, safer, more worthy. You convinced me that if I just followed your rules, I’d finally feel enough. And at first, it felt like maybe you were right.

But slowly, you took more than you gave. You turned my thoughts into obsessions, my confidence into fear, my body into a battleground. You made me believe that hunger was strength, that isolation was discipline, that shrinking made me powerful. You made me feel guilty for existing. You stole joy, relationships, spontaneity—everything that made me. You made promises you never intended to keep.

And the truth is—I’m tired. I’m tired of living in fear of food, tired of measuring worth in calories and numbers, tired of the constant war inside my head. I want more than what you offer. I want peace, connection, laughter. I want my life back.

This letter isn’t about pretending you were never there. I know you showed up for a reason. You tried to protect me in a world that sometimes felt too much. But your protection has a price I can’t pay anymore. So here’s the truth…I DON’T NEED YOU.

I’m learning to trust my body again. To listen to hunger not as weakness but as wisdom. I’m learning that healing is messy, but it’s mine. And every step I take away from you is a step toward freedom. YOU DON’T GET TO DEFINE ME!

Goodbye—for now, for good, or however many times I need to say it.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

KEEP YOUR CHIN UP! Take baby steps towards your recovery, put one foot in front of the other and know, with a capital K, you CAN do it. Even if you can’t see it now, the world needs you!

Fear

Fear is very real to those who have an eating disorder. We fear just about everything; from ourselves, to being a burden to others, failure, not being good enough, just to name a few. If you are like me, you live in fear 99% of the time. If you ask us what are we afraid of, most of us will say “I don’t know”. Could that answer indicate that we are afraid to look at much less confront our fears? Only you yourself can answer that question honestly.

My fears take both mental AND physical (called somatic) forms. I can feel it in my stomach (remember the butterflies in your stomach you got when you were afraid as a child) and in my throat which begins to physically hurt. Those are my somatic symptoms. The mental symptoms can be so overwhelming that we either fight (physically or verbally), freeze (withdraw into ourselves) or flight (we get the hell out of there or away from the person). I am quite sure that each of you reading this blog have experienced fear in one of these three ways. I, unfortunately, still tend to freeze. Then I beat myself up for standing there and taking whatever is causing the fear. Not very productive or positive of me. 2 years into recovery and that is an area that is still very hard for me to remember to use my tools from my toolbox.

First let’s look at the different things fear can stand for; which one of the above saying do you find to hold the most truth for you?

So what can we do to help calm our fears as they arise? How do we deal with them both mentally and physically?

Using the first example could bring to mind that what we perceive leading to our feelings of fear may not be true. In order to see if this is the case we need to ‘Check the Facts’. What evidence do we have to allow us to stay in the fear mode? This can be extremely hard to do since our fear wants to stay in control. It can color our thoughts and view point in unhealthy ways. We have to be able to look at the actual facts, NOT the facts as we wish they were. Much of how we do this is based on our use of the words we tell ourselves. Do the words ‘never’ or ‘should’ appear in our version of the facts? Just because our friend does not answer a text in the time frame we think they should does not mean they don’t like us anymore. But that may be the first go thought we have. In this case, what real evidence do we have to support this belief? Our fear doesn’t allow us to see or consider that our friend may be very busy or driving or any other many things that keep them from answering us in a timely manner. Does the evidence back up what we are thinking or feeling? Has our friend said anything to indicate that our thoughts are real? Remember… False Evidence Appears Real! With practice and asking ourselves what is the real evidence to my thoughts we can begin to challenge our fear.

By using the second meaning we will get nowhere fast UNLESS we are in physical danger, in which case absolutely follow it and run if you are able. If we are not in physical danger, running doesn’t usually do much to alleviate or calm our fears. In fact, it may make them worse as we tend to beat ourselves up when we don’t handle a situation like we think we ‘should’ (oh no, there’s that nasty word ‘should’)! See my blog on the Power of Words to see why ‘should’ ought not to be in our vocabulary. The tool I find to be the most useful to counteract the fear I am feeling is a Cope Ahead Plan. This is a written out plan of things you can do (breathing, meditation, self-talk, self-soothing, etc.) when faced with a situation that has the potential to create a level of fear within us that may cause us to react in a manner that does not help our recovery to move forward. Your professional support team can be a huge asset when trying to create such a plan.

I personally like the third option, because I work best when I am actually doing something about whatever issue I am trying to tackle. However this may not be your personality. Forget everything and rise. Rise above the fear. Handle it on the spot so it does not fester in our minds and grow larger and larger. Here is where the Cope Ahead Plan you have put together helps a great deal. Read it every day; this helps to firm up the plan on how we could handle our fear before it strikes again.

One of the ways we can get a handle on our fear is to talk to it. Ask it what is causing the fear to appear at this time. Listen for the answer. Don’t be surprised if the answer you get is “everything”. Ask the fear if it can be more specific. Whatever comes immediately to mind may be the thing you fear the most. In my case, it is the fear of not being good enough. I then ask it to tell me “what will be good enough”. This question then enables me to start to examine what do I need to believe I am good enough. I can then use one of the above definitions of fear to begin to lower the level of the fear I feel. Your question(s) may be different from my questions; make the question(s) specific to you. If you aren’t able to come up with questions or answers your professional support team is there to help you. If you are able to ask questions directed to your fear, you are well on your way to lessening the level of it. This will not happen overnight it will take practice. Just start.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

KEEP YOUR CHIN UP! Take baby steps towards your recovery, put one foot in front of the other and know, with a capital K, you CAN do it. Even if you can’t see it now, the world needs you!

Just Breathe

Masks

Keep Going

Masks

If you are like me, you go through our lives not knowing who you really are. We try hard to be everything to everyone. We do everything in our power to “be perfect”. We feel like we have to be all things to everyone. We try with all our might to not let others see what we believe we are or what we actually feel about ourselves. We are so lost in the idea of “who am I”, we have totally lost track of US! We feel as though we are nothing but masks that we can put on and take off depending on the situation. Our masks are some much a part of our lives we don’t even realize most of the time we are wearing them or switching them out. Masks allow us to pretend to be someone we want to be. If your life is unhappy, we usually have the belief that if we just could be what others say we should be we will just be happy. Then we put on our masks to hide who are really are.

I have come to realize that the masks we think we wear aren’t masks, but really are parts of us. Usually they are small parts of us that really exist. After all, how can we wear a mask of something we don’t somehow, somewhere inside ourselves feel. If you put on what you view as a mask of kindness, you may be surprised to find kindness is really there inside of you. The mask of being happy contains the part of us that really strives to be happy, even though we may not think so. The mask of caring can show us that we are really a caring person even if we don’t feel it at that time.

As soon as we are able to understand masks aren’t masks but rather just a part of who we are deep inside we can begin to embrace each part of ourself. We can nurture it and help it to blossom and grow. We begin to believe we are NOT a phony, but rather who we are…a kind, caring, compassionate, loving, nurturing person.

What parts of you are you seeing as a mask? Does these parts of you exist buried somewhere inside of you? How can you bring those parts to the front of our life? This is where, again, your professional team can be of help. Make a list of the “masks” you think you wear. Put a check mark next to each of the items in your list that you know are a real part of you. I think you will be surprised at the results.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

KEEP YOUR CHIN UP! Take baby steps towards your recovery, put one foot in front of the other and know, with a capital K, you CAN do it. Even if you can’t see it now, the world needs you!

Books I Recommend

I am the type of person who wants to know everything I can about the eating disorder that has consumed my life for over 50 years. Usually, at first, my research was an attempt to prove to myself that I DID NOT have this disease. For most of us, if not all of us, we end proving to ourself that the diagnosis is correct and, yes, we do having ED. At that point, my mind turned to research for that ‘quick fix’. Sound familiar? At some point, we begin to see that there is no such thing as a ‘quick fix’; that we actually have to do some tough and very difficult work. Very frightening for most of us.

These are 4 of the books I would recommend to read for those of us who suffer from any type of eating disorder. I have read them and found them to be helpful – some of which were very helpful, some that were somewhat helpful and some just for knowledge of about our disease. The books I am now most drawn to and find the most helpful are the books that contain knowledge that help me to see how and why my body and mind work ALONG WITH tools I can use to overcome the ED.

If you choose to read or even peruse any of these books, there will be things you can relate to and things you think are pure junk. Take what you need and leave the rest. Understanding that you may not be in a place to believe at that time you are reading them what they have to say is normal. Which is why I will at times refer back to them since as I recover I may be able to be more receptive to the information presented.

For those of you who don’t like to read or struggle with actually reading, many of these books are available on Audible (my personal favorite for audiobooks). You can listen to them when falling asleep or driving somewhere. I would recommend making a mental note of where you left off before you went to sleep and set a timer for when you want to stop listening or may fall asleep so you don’t miss out of an idea that might be beneficial to you in your journey.

With some of these books there may be a workbook that goes along with the book. I would advise speaking with your professional support team before beginning any workbook. This is simply because the feelings, thoughts and emotions a workbook may bring up can be difficult for us (especially in the beginning phases of our recovery) to handle. When your professional team is aware of your work in any workbook, they will be prepared to help you deal with these uncomfortable thoughts.

Coping with BPD by Blaise Aguirre, MD & GillianGalen, PsyD

DBT & CBT skills to soothe the symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder

I know the title shows this book is for those of us who also suffer from BPD, yet I found the entire book contains situations, feelings, thoughts and emotions that every single one of us has felt and struggled with. This is a very easy read with only 200 pages. This book is my favorite go-to book when confronted with strong situations causing equally as strong thoughts and feelings. I carry this book in my backpack where I keep my other things like my gratitude journal or templates I use to write out my thoughts when overwhelmed or stuck.

Some of the chapters that are in this book address stuff like Anger, Other Intense Emotions, Loneliness, Observing Personal Limits, Urges, Negative self-Thoughts, and Who Am I just to name a few. Within each chapter are 2 to 3 pages are different facets of each topic, so they are short, easy to read pages. Each section starts with The Problem, What It Looks Like, The practice (with short explanations of each practice and ending with a checklist of each of the practices that were discussed. Example: under the chapter on Other Intense Emotions there are pages that address the feelings of Sadness, jealousy, Guilt, Shame, Fear and Disgust.

The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk, M.D.

Brian, Mind and Body in the Healing of Trauma

This book is a much longer read. If you like to read, you may be interested in this book. It provides a lot of information on how our bodies store the physical symptoms for any trauma we have experienced during our life. Most of us with an eating disorder have experienced some sort of trauma during our lives. Some of us have experienced repeated trauma most of our lives. For me, it was an eye opener. It helped me to realize that for far too long that most of the somatic (physical) sensations I felt were a result of what I went through and greatly helped to feed the eating disorder that was consuming my life. This book does have a workbook though it is not necessary to use this in order to understand the book, the hows and whys of what we physically feel and the process of healing.

Decoding Anorexia by Carrie Arnold

How breakthroughs on Science Offer Hope for Eating Disorders

This is a book that throughly explains the hows and whys and changes of our actual brain when we become a victim of an eating disorder. It explains the neuroscience behind the changes to our brain. For me, I found this book to be interesting since I am fascinated by why our physical brain changes which make it so much more difficult to combat our disease. Having to fight our ED on 2 fronts, mental and physical changes to our brain can make it seem twice as hard. This book is very much science based. Therefore unless you are interested in that particular aspect of eating disorders this may not be the book for you.

Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach, Ph.D.

Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha

This book talks mostly about the idea of radical acceptance, which is the art of accepting what is and what has been WITHOUT JUDGEMENT. For a lot of us, we can be the most judgmental people about ourselves in our own lives. This book “shows us the way step by step to stop being at war with ourselves and begin to live fully every precious moment of our lives “. Radical Acceptance is a tool that I have found every professional tries to teach us and encourage us to use in our quest to get better, no matter the type of eating disorder we suffer from. It is also useful in every aspect of our life.

‘What is is” as I have found seems to be something the younger generation says. But how do we come to that conclusion? That is where this book can be of benefit to each of us. It is not a difficult read though it is over 300 pages.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

KEEP YOUR CHIN UP! Take baby steps towards your recovery, put one foot in front of the other and know, with a capital K, you CAN do it. Even if you can’t see it now, the world needs you!

2 Years Ago

Today marks the 2 year anniversary since I entered the residential treatment facility for my eating disorder. I was a mess back then; confused, angry and in deep despair. I shook and cried the whole time during the intake process. I felt like a total failure. I hated knowing there was something I couldn’t tackle on my own. My self-hatred ran deep. I had had to rely on my daughter to get me to the treatment facility which also made me feel terrible. After all, I was the mom and I was supposed to take of her (even though she was an adult with her own child) not the other way around. Most of all, I was afraid. Probably the most afraid I can ever remember being in my life of 66 years. What would they do to me? How could anyone possibly help me; after all I was sure no one could help me. I had resigned myself that this disease was going to kill me. At that point that was preferable to the mental pain I was in.

As I have said I the “My Personal Journey “ blog I was not the “best patient”! I fought and fought to control everything. Fortunately, they had (I am sure) encountered other patients with the same attitude as me. I challenged everything they were trying to teach me. I hated being asked to do things I was not “perfect” at; sure that everyone was judging me. The staff at the facility were kind and patient. They listened to my fears and helped me to find out I could manage (notice I didn’t use the word control) my ED.

2 years later, I have reached my goal weight and no longer believe this disease was going to kill me. Though a lot of hard work and many ups and downs I now believe that I can live a life filled with love, happiness and the ability to be there for those people that I loved. I no longer feel that this disease will kill me.

My professional support system has continued the lessons I learned at the treatment facility. They have helped me to spot the cognitive distortions and challenge them with other more positive thoughts. They have helped me to continue the progress and the lessons I learned at the treatment facility. I am the one that still had to do the hard work; but at times I fought against it with all my might.

I have learned that I am worth fighting for. I don’t have to let this disease control me, but rather that I could manage it. I now have the ability to know when it is me or the ED talking. I learned that I will always have to be aware of my triggers which always set off my ED. I have learned how to manage my triggers about 75% of the time. I am human, so I still have moments where those triggers overwhelm me. This is where I have learned to reach out to them; that I am NOT a burden to them when I reach out during the times I am struggling during the days I am not seeing them. They have been kind, compassionate and gentle. Which for me are traits I am not used to having shown to me.

I am now genuinely happy some of the time. My ED no longer runs my life most of the time. I can show myself and are worthy of the same compassion and understanding that I receive from my support team. I no longer feel as though this disease is all I have. I don’t need to be defined by a number on the scale; that there is so much more to me. I have a bright future. I embrace the future, though at times with trepidation, and realize that I am NOT my past. I now try very hard to not ‘fortune tell’ but rather to use my past as nothing more than a history book and NOT a crystal ball!

I will be the first to tell you all that this past 2 years has been difficult and at times seems impossible to keep on track. But for me, it is has been well worth it, in spite of the pain I have gone through to get here. I know that the pain won’t last forever and I have the tools to cope with it. It may take me a day or 2 to work through this pain; but I can do it. I keep track of my progress for those days that I am sure I can’t go another step. I have found a purpose in my life which helps me on those ‘bad’ days. I also use my playlist to remind me that “I will survive”.

Be aware for the times that the ED is talking. One step at a time, no matter how small of a step it is. Life can be good again. But only you can do the hard work! My hope for all of you is that you can beat this awful persistent disease and live a happy, purposeful and productive life! You are NOT your disease!

FINAL THOUGHTS:

KEEP YOUR CHIN UP! Take baby steps towards your recovery, put one foot in front of the other and know, with a capital K, you CAN do it. Even if you can’t see it now, the world needs you!