lyfe haz a flavr

i just finished watching a television show on eating disorders... i cried. a lot. one thing that really got me was when one of the young women on the show looked at a photo of herself pre-eating disorder, and she said "she let me down. she should have been stronger." and i cried for her, but i also cried for me.

so many times i've beaten myself up for things i've done, for choices i made as a teenager, or even as a child, for things that were not my fault. for doing the best i could when facing things that no child, no adult even, should have to bear. for using the tools i had at the time, for making decisions and taking actions based on the limited resources (physical, emotional, etc) i had at the time.

whenever we look back at the roots of our mental illnesses, we need to be gentle with ourselves. we need to remember that whatever decisions we made years earlier, before we understood ourselves as we do now - as we work to understand ourselves even better - we made with the best intentions. we made them as best we could at the time. we need to let go of guilt and regret, and just breathe.

i'm going to go take a walk, and a few deep breaths, myself.