After making yourself throw up it might take one to three weeks for your esophagus to heal. That's less than six weeks, which is how long it takes for an arm to heal after you fall out of a tree—without godly help of course. But what about the other kinds of healing, the ones that are invisible from the outside? Those take longer. Much longer. It could take years—your whole life even. How do you heal a relationship, specifically with something that isn't even alive? Very slowly, and with patience, like any type of healing. It takes a lot of control, but at the same time you have to be careful about that. You have to learn how to be okay with not always having so much control. With doing things that might go against everything your brain tells you. Some days will be harder than others. Sometimes it'll be so hard you think, "what's even the point?" Or "I'm going to be like this forever." Megan says the most important thing is to keep going. You slipped up one time? That's not the end of the world. It doesn't mean there's no hope, which is what I believed in the beginning. But after a few sessions I can tell it's a little better at least. I've been thinking a lot. About everything. It's all about the small successes and breaking the cycle. For example, I didn't hurt myself this week (and barely thought about it). Maybe next week I won't think about it at all. I understand that Eleanor wanting to take a break is what triggered all of this—suddenly it feels like my life is totally falling apart so in order to handle the situation my brain goes back to the coping mechanisms it knows best. I'm not saying I blame Eleanor—In a way I'm almost grateful for the break, because it helped me to realize that just because I felt like I was getting better doesn't mean I'm healed. More like distracted. Healing is a process, one that doesn't happen immediately just because you meet a person. Even if you know it's the right person. It's good to take breaks. To take some time to figure yourself out. You know you still have that person to depend on. I guess what I'm saying is, it's not the end of the world. I can still have hope that things will be okay.
